Monday Sunshine 29th July

[marktownley]

Following a thoroughly wet weekend, Monday was the total opposite - wall to wall sunshine with deep blue skies all day, I was out from first thing trying to make the most of the better seeing first thing before the heat built up again mid morning.

First up, a 'nothing shot' - but from my perspective served to show has potential in a few years time as another full disk monitor. Using the 60mm/f6, Sodium Quark, 0.7x solar telecompressor and the GH3 ICX916M camera it is possible to get a full disk with the Quark, so I did. Still not convinced the Na Quark is anything more than an expensive WL filter but is good to play. Means you could also get a full disk this way with the Mg Quark... Hmmm...

NA-FD-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

NA-FD-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Anyways, next up so Ha, and starting with the full disk with the Lunt50 etalon, 60mm/f6, Ha Quark, 0.7x solar telecompressor and the GH3 ICX916M

Ha-FD-DS-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Ha-FD-DS-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Things weren't hugely different with the SM90 in terms of contrast, maybe the DS wasn't tuned optimally?

Ha-FD-SS-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Ha-FD-SS-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Next up it was time to go fishing a little closer in, with the SSM to grab the better frames. Here's the SM90 double stacked with the Quark:

sm90-fila-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

sm90-fila-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Noise was an issue with the cameras in the heat again, I need to engineer a cooling solution... Then, ever the optimist, I got out the HaT for a closer look at the filament with the Quark, this time with the GH3 IMX174 camera to try and freeze the seeing. I took a lot of exposures and this was the best...

hat-fila-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

hat-fila-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Then time to dive into the blue end, first up the full disk - 80mm f12.5, homebrew CaK filter and the GH3 ICX916M camera

CaK-fd.-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

CaK-fd.-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Next up, going to 100mm aperture and running just over 2m focal length with the GH3 IMX174 for those faster frames. Can't compete with Alexandras gorgeous CaK image from today, not at the same resolution or image scale, I think next time I might try 3m fl and see if I can tease any more detail Still pleased with these, the seeing rarely obliges for me like this.

cak-plage-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

cak-plage-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Tomorrow has a storm forecast, but I reckon there might be some sneaky gaps in the rain band, so, weather allowing will see what tomorrow brings. Hope you like these!

Mark

[MAURITS]

Yes Mark, it's a never ending story ...
Very nice and crisp detailed images.

[MapleRidge]

Superb series of images Mark, in all wavelengths

The Ha views of the filaments and small active spots looked great in Alexandra's scope looked great as did the proms.

Brian

[xn44]

Súper images!

[LTHB]

Nice set, Mark!

[Carbon60]

Looks like you had a blast, Mark. Great images, there, across the spectrum.

Stu.

[ffellah]

A great set of images, Mark. Glad to see you are enjoying your SM90 and getting some good use of the HaT.

Franco

[eroel]

Mark:
Looks like you had a super session, very nice images all of them.
Regards,
Eric.

[marktownley]

Thanks everyone! Hoping to sneak a few more images in this morning before the weather turns for the day...

[Montana]

Great Mark looks like you had a good session, it was such a super day. I didn't have wall to wall blue but had the fluffy clouds in between but I'd have that any day compared to the miserable weekend.

I think the sodium Quark was more interesting at close up with those strange dark filaments, perhaps it will come more into its own when the spot count goes up. The hydrogen alpha is super, there is such a lot of extra detail in the 90mm when viewed up close. The CaK is also great, I am so happy to finally have a spotty scene like yours although it took me a long time to work out I have to vertically flip all the images. I think my full disc matches yours now

Have another good session today, Sat24 shows you have clear weather, we have cloud today (what a lucky day off yesterday).
Alexandra