September 2023 Solar Chat.

[Solsearcher]

@messier 111 Jean-Yves That is good news !! I am looking forward to reading about your first light .

[StarHugger]

What a month this far and almost being over with only a couple sessions in and I'm thinking its a about time to make a last post in this thread for September...

Just not weather condusive to Solar observation or imaging, so I spent some time procuring and setting up a new post process pc for stacking and editing.

I shoot with a 17" Toshiba to manage the captures and have been finish processing on that machine for a year now but wanted a system with a bigger monitor and wireless keyboard because of the wheelchair thing.

So I purchased a refurbished Dell and a fancy 46" monitor for the task, when, if I get some Sun this should make things alot easier for me.

Already enjoying the images already taken like their new all over again with the added screen size and resolution.


Anyways, best of luck for what remains in Sept, and Have an Awesome Weekend Everyone!

[Thefatkitty]

It's been a fun month for me; I managed 20 clear or clear-ish days.

Today Fed Ex delivered my new 3 in 1 finderscope adaptor. My WO 61 is a short scope, and not the best for finding the Sun using the shadow method. So I made a finderscope from a piece of 1 1/4" flatbar, welded to that an L-bracket, and used some plastic and a nut and bolt.

That gets me well lined up with the Sun, then I use the finderscope for centering, and ol' Sol shows up dead center in my laptop with Sharpcap. It sometimes took me longer to find the Sun than it did to shoot it; not anymore. Today it took all of about 15 seconds instead of minutes... I use my old CG4 mount which I bought with my C80-HD. The scope rings were bolted to the mount, so over the years I've made brackets which line up with the mounting holes for various scopes.

I also made another bracket out of part of a hinge, two pieces of 1/4" roundbar and two skateboard wheel bearings. What is this for?

I'm tempted to put it as a centre piece on the dining room table...

I was out at 11:30 this morning, here's the result of that.

This is at 4:30, 5 hours later. Some noticeable changes.

And this is probably going to be AR3451 (no designation as of this writing), it's looking pretty active in that 5 hour time span.

3451AM.jpg (5.48 KiB) Viewed 106 times

3451PM.jpg (8.25 KiB) Viewed 106 times

@Solsearcher Mike, thanks for the idea the other day about upgrading the software for the board. You had mentioned this before, but life got in the way. I did try it today and hoped it would "jump start" my controller so to speak, but nothing.
I'm thinking the hand controller is done, though I'm not sure why. I know you did suggest trying yours and even loaning me your EQ5, but with my luck, my mount would fry your controller..!! I will take you up on the offer for sure, but I need to make sure that I can get you another controller if this does happen, and if it comes down to a mount issue, yes I'd love to borrow your mount, but I need to leave you a total deposit for the cost of it in case of. That's just me, and the ERF with buddy was enough I'm sure! I don't want to and won't be that guy.

Alrighty, enough of me. Hope we all have a good October!