Solar Flares/Prominances from 5-26-24

This image focuses on the solar flares/prominences, however, the chromosphere does show some amazing structure. I like the swirling flames of these prominences and they look better than ones I have captured up to this point. The previous full disk image was with an inexpensive white light filter whereas this was with an expensive eyepiece solar filter known as a Quark. The Daystar Quark uses a specialized hydrogen etalon filter designed for solar imaging. I have the Chromosphere model which focuses mainly on the surface but does a decent job on the flares. There is a Flare model that focuses on the flares rather than on the surface. Rumor has it that the Chromosphere does a better overall job so I went with it instead of the Flare model. There is also a Gemini model which can switch between the flares and chromosphere but it is twice the price.

I used Sharpcap for capturing and am getting more comfortable with it. Processing was done with AutoStackert, IMPPG, and Photoshop. I am sure a more experienced solar processor would be able to produce a better image but I am having a good time playing around with it.

 

Higher Quality 

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Solar Flares/Prominances from 5-26-24
Date: 5-26-24
Camera: ZWO ASI174MM-Pro
Telescope: Orion ED80
Barlow: DayStar Quark 4.2x
Focal Length: 600mm (2520mm w/Quark)
F/7.5 (F/31.5 w Quark)
Focal Reducer: none
Mount: Orion Sirius EQ
Filter Adaptor: None
Filter: Baader UV-IR, Daystar Quark
Focuser: None
Autoguiding: None
Exposure: 100 x 8.4020 ms (100 of 500)
Gain: 100
Offset 0
FPS: 65
Temp: 15 C
Processing: SharpCap, AutoStakkert, IMPPG, Photoshop

Sunspots 5-26-24

What a difference one day makes as it is cloudy and rainy today! This was from yesterday and is my best solar image taken with a simple inexpensive white light filter (Daystar N5 film) - however, it was with my new solar camera (ZWO ASI174MM). Lots of sunspots (3695/3691-top left, 3690-just under the previous, 3693-lo the left, 3692-center, 3686/3685-bottom right). You can actually make out some other detail in addition to the sunspots which I was quite happy with.

Higher Quality - annotated version 

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Sunspots 5-26-24
Date: 5-26-24
Camera: ZWO ASI174MM-Pro
Telescope: Orion ED80
Barlow: none
Focal Length: 600mm 
F/7.5 
Focal Reducer: none
Mount: Orion Sirius EQ
Filter Adaptor: None
Filter: Baader UV-IR, Daystar Solar Filter (SolarLite Film-N5)
Focuser: None
Autoguiding: None
Exposure: 100 x 9.9340 ms (100 of 500)

Gain: 100

Offset 0

FPS: 67 

Temp: 15 C

Processing: SharpCap, AutoStakkert, IMPPG, Photoshop

Messier 95 (2024)

This is my latest version of Messier 95, the previous version is from five years ago. M95 or NGC 3351 is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 38 million light-years away and 70,000 ly across making it about half the size of our own Milky Way. The spiral arms are tightly bound to the central core and contain many young blue stars as evidenced by the blue regions in the rings. Another interesting feature is the bright nuclear ring that surrounds the core. It is not clear to me why some galaxies have this but quite a few do. Also interesting to me is the dark red/brown dust lane across the inner core. 

This image is orders of magnitude better than my previous attempts which were captured with less than half the focal length as this version. Also my processing is much improved, however, given the relative size of this galaxy, I believe the focal length was the biggest factor.

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Messier 95 (2024)

Dates: 4-13-24, 4-25, 4-26, 5-8
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Telescope: Celestron EdgeHD 800
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 2032mm (native), 1400mm
F/10 (native), F/7
Focal Reducer: Celestron 0.7 Reducer Lens
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro
Filter Adaptor: ZWO Filter Drawer
Filter: Camera UV-IR
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: Askar M54 OAG/ZWO ASI174 mini
Exposure: UV-IR 261 x 90 (6h 31')
Gain: 139
Offset 0
Temp: -10 C
Processing: Asiair app, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXT, NoiseXT, StarX, Bill's Colormasks, Bill's Stretching, GraXpert, Topaz Denoise

Caught a bit of the Aurora here in Monroe!

 Aurora in Monroe CT! 

Friday 5-10-24.

Location: Home Monroe, CT

Date: 5-10-24

Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i/600d modified

Lens: Opteka 8mm fisheye

Barlow: None

Focal Length: 6.5mm

f/3.5

Focal Reducer: None

Mount: Tripod

Filter: Astronomik Clipin OWB 

Autoguiding: None

Exposure: 1 x 10s

ISO: 1600

Temp: 15 C

Post Processing: Photoshop, PixInsight.

Solar Activity 5-11-24 - First Light the ASI174MM

These are the first images with my ZWO ASI174MM. It was the perfect morning to do this especially coming off of the aurora's the night before. I am very happy with this camera, even the live view was so much better than the ASI178. RThere will be more in-depth information later. I just wanted to get some images. One thing I will mention is that I don't have a good view of the morning sun from my observatory so I set the scope and all on to the AM3 Mount which is fine. However, I could not find the APP to run the mount so I had to scramble and use the hand controller which fortunately worked fine. I later found out that ZWO changed the name of the mount APP.

The ring structures visible on some of the images are an artifact known as Newton's rings. They can be corrected with tilt adjuster which I have I just have to play around with it, otherwise these are my best solar images yet. 

Solar Activity 5-11-24 - First Light the ASI174MM
Date: 5-11-24
Camera: ZWO ASI174MM-Pro
Telescope: Orion ED80
Barlow: Daystar Quark 4.2x
Focal Length: 600mm (2520mm w/Quark)
F/7.5 (F/31.5 w Quark)
Focal Reducer: none
Mount: ZWO AM3
Filter Adaptor: None
Filter: Camera UV-IR, Ha-Quark
Focuser: None
Autoguiding: None
Exposure: 100 x 6.1340 ms (100 of 500)
Gain: 100
Offset 0
Temp: 15 C
Processing: SharpCap, AutoStakkert, IMPPG, Photoshop

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Sunspots: Quark & ASI178

So this is my first closeup of sun spots with my developing solar setup. Based on when the data was collected, 2024 - April 27, I believe this sunspot grouping is AR3654 and the one on the left side is AR3655. It is not the best solar image as the detail and sharpness could be better but I am happy with it. This summer I plan to do more solar imaging with the setup I built a few years ago. It consists of the Orion ED80, Daystar Quark Chromosphere, and ZWO ASI178. Sharpcap was used for image acquisition while AutoStakkert & IMPPG were used for the main processing although I did a bit of final work in PixInsight and Photoshop. There is some type of artifact on the right that I was able to reduce a bit.


I did collect a series of five videos of a solar flare in an attempt to make a video using batch processing. It worked, however the detail was not good and it was not worth posting. The likely causes for the lack of sharpness are poor 1) seeing conditions, 2) scope not good enough, and/or 3) the camera not good enough. I can't do anything about the weather but the scope I think is fine as I took some lunar images with it recently and was quite satisfied. The ZWO ASI178 is a very good lunar and planetary camera with its small pixel size of 2.4 micrometers and capture speed of 60 fps (10 bit), however, for solar work using a Quark, a faster speed and larger pixel size would be better. I have ordered an ASI174 which has a capture rate between 160 fps (10 bit) and pixel size of 5.86 micrometers. Fortunately, since solar and planetary cameras are not cooled, they are not as pricey as deep sky cameras, relatively speaking. The other thing that could make a higher quality image is doing flats. Doing flats with solar imaging is a bit different than deep sky flats and I have not tried them yet although the method for collecting them looks fairly easy.

Sunspots: Quark & ASI178
Date: 4-28-24
Camera: ZWO ASI178MM-Pro
Telescope: Orion ED80
Barlow: Daystar Quark 4.2x
Focal Length: 600mm (2520mm w/Quark)
F/7.5 (F/31.5 w Quark)
Focal Reducer: none
Mount: Orion Sirius Pro
Filter Adaptor: None
Filter: Camera UV-IR, Ha-Quark
Focuser: None
Autoguiding: None
Exposure: 300 x 4.1910 ms (30% of 1000)
Gain: 200
Offset 0
Temp: 15 C
Processing: SharpCap, AutoStakkert, PixInsight, Photoshop

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