26-1-2011 A sunspot with a scar & a big prominence

There are two sunspots and one of those with a scar. Isn’t it funny? The seeing today is bad. Originally I intended to use TV 5X & DMK 21 to do a high magnification shot, but it sucks because of the bad seeing today. These images are taken with TV 2.5X & DMK21.

LS80T, TV 2.5X, DMK21

19-1-2011 Solar Observation

The activity is low. Anyway, this is a chance for me to practice solar imaging with this new LS80T. The focal length of the LS80T is 560mm. The CCD size of DMK 41 cannot capture full solar disc in one go. Therefore a drifting approach is needed. In order to align the full disc properly, one needs to select those alignment points which appear in the whole video. Otherwise misalignment or non-uniform brightness will be resulted.

LS80T, DMK41

LS80T, DMK41

LS80T, DMK21, TV 2.5X

17-1-2011 lots of proms today

The sun got lots of prominence and one sunspot today. I tried to image the sunspot at higher magnification. But I cannot make it because I have lessons to go!
Equipment: LS80T, DMK41, DMK21

Browsing around Orion with a small spaceship Tak FS60C

I used to use my Takahashi FS60C to do visual observations at home. It is a convenient scope for casual lunar & planetary observations. However, I bought a Tak f6.2 flattener for unsound reason, Deep Sky Imaging! It has been hanged around for more than a half year. Two days ago, 28/12/2010, I have a chance to try this little spaceship. The best destination for small spaceship in winter is the good old Orion region. Here are the products.
Takahashi FS60C
Tak FS60C Flattener f6.2
40D
LVI II
350mm guide scope (A modified 9x50 finder scope)
LPS-P2
HEQ5Pro
ISO 800
Dark frame
M42 (6x6mins = 36mins)
Horsehead Nebula (5x6mins + 1x10min = 40mins)

M42 (resized centre crop)

M42 (resized 100% crop)




Horsehead Nebula (resized centre crop)


Horsehead Nebula (resized 100% crop)

The First Light of Lunt LS80THa/PT

This is the first light of LS80THa/PT. The sun is not active today. Nothing special can be seen… The focal length of LS80T is 560mm, the DMK cannot image the full disc in one go. Luckily the width of the DMK sensor is able to cover full disc, the other shorter direction is being captured by drifting. One can see there is a slight horizontal artifact in the image. I don’t know how to get rid of it.
In general, the scope deliveries uniform images for both visual & photography. The newly equipped pressure tune of LS80THa/PT is gorgeous! It just likes the Feather touch version of etalon tuning. This sophisticated design makes fine Doppler tuning possible.

My First M42

I started DSI since this summer.

http://willisao.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-first-dsi-m8-m20.html

M8 & M20 are easy targets in the summer. I have seen lots of M42 in Internet. Last night the sky condition was good and enabled me to image my first M42. In the middle of the imaging, LVI complainted several times of loss star! I looked at the sky. The guide star was not covered by clouds. Gosh! The guide scope was fogged! I have no heater. In fact both guide scope & main scope were fogged. I didn’t know when this happened. I have no cleaning kits! This certainly caused loss some contrast & resolution etc. Perhaps there is lots of room for improvement, I am very happy with this image. It marks my first winter DSI this year.
Equinox 80ED

Astrotech Zero Power flattener

40D

LVI II

350mm guide scope (A modified 9x50 finder scope)

LPS-P2

HEQ5 Pro

ISO 800

2x30s, 6x2mins, 2x5mins, 2x10mins = 43mins (Total)

24-10-2010 High Resolution Lunar Mosaic of 29 Pieces

I've been waited for full moon for more than half year since last encounter!

http://willisao.blogspot.com/2009/12/high-resolution-lunar-mosaic.html

Finally I made it on 24-10-2010!!! This is a resized version. The original size is 5261x4628. I wish I can break the world record one day.

http://www.lunarworldrecord.com/

Best 95% of 100 frames per avi files are stacked. HKT 01:00, 24-10-2010, Moon age 15.9, Equinox 120ED, Baader UV/IR, EQ3Pro, DMK41, Registax 5, PS CS4