November 2023 Solar Chat

[StarHugger]

Thought I'd get the November chat rolling with this interesting paper discusing ancient texts that refer to solar cycle anomalies long ago and how they differed from today, alot of solar eye candy included too...

Have an Awesome November Everyone!



West Pacific Anomaly mentioned in the video,

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2026080118

Not mentioned in the video but equally as interesting the South Atlantic Anomaly,

https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/7/10/1606/5824672

[Solsearcher]

Good link Aaron , thank you for posting .

Much easier to look back and see what happened than to try looking ahead to predict what might happen . This is what keeps my interest , you can never predict what might be coming around the limb or might appear before your eyes .
The sun is the most dynamic and unpredictable target I have viewed through a telescope and is the reason I am hooked on solar !!

[StarHugger]

Good link Aaron , thank you for posting .

Much easier to look back and see what happened than to try looking ahead to predict what might happen . This is what keeps my interest , you can never predict what might be coming around the limb or might appear before your eyes .
The sun is the most dynamic and unpredictable target I have viewed through a telescope and is the reason I am hooked on solar !!

Your very Welcome Mike,

With all the varient light it shines on us and all the solarstorms it sends to amaze us and all its varied ever varigating surfaces, transits, eclipses flares, cme's and more...

Always something happening on the Sun, Indeed.

[messier 111]

as my grandmother said, if you want to know where you are going, you have to start by knowing where you are coming from.
thx for the link .

[StarHugger]

as my grandmother said, if you want to know where you are going, you have to start by knowing where you are coming from.
thx for the link .

Your Welcome, grandmothers are a wise lot indeed!

[Thefatkitty]

Hi all,

6 days ago Mike @Solsearcher sent me a PM about a BF10 on Astrobuysell.com (a Canuck used astronomy stuff site). For me to buy one of these new here would cost a bit over $900 with tax. Plus thery're "special order" so a wait time. My HA scope currently has a 5mm. The seller wanted $600, works for me.

I went at 9AM today (no traffic) and was there in half an hour. I met him, we talked (nice guy) and long story short he let me have it for $500! Almost half price and literally brand new. This will make a difference to be sure:

Thanks again for the heads up Mike, much appreciated!

All the best for a clear day,

[Lady Fraktor]

That was a excellent outcome Mark.
Hopefully you can use it right away.

[Thefatkitty]

That was a excellent outcome Mark.
Hopefully you can use it right away.

Well, I tried... I can't get focus with an eyepiece (25mm Fujiyama KK) for some reason. Tried both BF's too. It's hard to say; the Sun's low on the horizon and I'm trying this with a manual pipe mount... All I see is a fuzzy orange blob, though the blob is much bigger in the BF10
I know it does work with my camera, but I need to fix my AZ/EQ5 for tracking. I don't even know where to start on that; replaced the system board and still nothing. Controller maybe? There's only so much electronics on these things.

Too bad that Solarquest mount from SW is only rated for 11lbs. That's what my HA scope weighs, so that wouldn't be the best idea. Otherwise I'd just do that.

I need to pay another visit to Mike... I can hear him groaning now!

[StarHugger]

Sounds like things are getting interesting Mark, looking forward to some good news...

Beginning the fall upgrades here too with an upgraded laptop that actually runs usb 3 and will process at twice the speed of the 15 year old one it replaced.


Best of solutions!

[Thefatkitty]

Sounds like things are getting interesting Mark, looking forward to some good news...

Beginning the fall upgrades here too with an upgraded laptop that actually runs usb 3 and will process at twice the speed of the 15 year old one it replaced.


Best of solutions!

Thanks Aaron and good for you on the laptop! I bought an Acer last March (Acer Aspire Vero, 15.6" FHD IPS, Intel Core i5-1155G7, 12GB DDR4, 512GB SSD) with USB3 and my mono camera. On a good day I've gotten 126FPS. I hope to have this laptop and even camera for 15 years also! I still use my 2012 desktop with Linux Mint; that's what I'm writing this on now. I hope it works out well for you!

After I got home from picking up the BF I took out my little Ca-K scope. Shot 3 sets of 2000 frames with varying exposure; this was the best 50 frames out of all that:

I was going to take out the 90mm HA monster right after, but the daughter-unit was going to a friends place and it's a long bus ride, so I drove her. By the time I got back home and set up the HA scope the Sun was almost gone. I'll hopefully see what's up through the week!

Clear skies,

[StarHugger]

Thanks,

Your images are really nice and best of luck with that ha setup, Great Solar seems to come in small expensive and careful steps.

I picked up a reconditioned dell laditude from 2014 an e6440 with dual ssd 1 tb twin bootable drives 16 g of ram and with the original 3.1 Ghz 4th gen i7, the upgrades will be 32 g of ram and a better processor if one can be found.

My new cam will be the Asi585mc at 8mp or four times the Asi385's resolution with 1/4 smaller pixels running usb 3, this moves my coloured disks Solar wedge imaging campaign away from the 70mm and on to the At80ed for yet another expected increase in resolution.

Really looking forward here Mark, indeed.

[messier 111]

Hi all,

6 days ago Mike @Solsearcher sent me a PM about a BF10 on Astrobuysell.com (a Canuck used astronomy stuff site). For me to buy one of these new here would cost a bit over $900 with tax. Plus thery're "special order" so a wait time. My HA scope currently has a 5mm. The seller wanted $600, works for me.

I went at 9AM today (no traffic) and was there in half an hour. I met him, we talked (nice guy) and long story short he let me have it for $500! Almost half price and literally brand new. This will make a difference to be sure:


BFs.jpg



Thanks again for the heads up Mike, much appreciated!

All the best for a clear day,

This is a very good acquisition, I hope you will succeed in finding the focus, thx.

[Solsearcher]

That was a excellent outcome Mark.
Hopefully you can use it right away.

Well, I tried... I can't get focus with an eyepiece (25mm Fujiyama KK) for some reason. Tried both BF's too. It's hard to say; the Sun's low on the horizon and I'm trying this with a manual pipe mount... All I see is a fuzzy orange blob, though the blob is much bigger in the BF10
I know it does work with my camera, but I need to fix my AZ/EQ5 for tracking. I don't even know where to start on that; replaced the system board and still nothing. Controller maybe? There's only so much electronics on these things.

Too bad that Solarquest mount from SW is only rated for 11lbs. That's what my HA scope weighs, so that wouldn't be the best idea. Otherwise I'd just do that.

I need to pay another visit to Mike... I can hear him groaning now!

Hey Mark ,

Changing the BF will not effect the focal length or focus , your etalon will need to be tunes fairly close to being on band before you will see enough detail to focus . Bring the disk into view so the limb is visible and make it as sharp as you can , then adjust the etalon to bring out the detail . You will likely likely have to tweak the focus once you have the etalon adjusted . As you know the etalon gives you the ability to tune for surface or proms , adjusting the etalon tuning can require tweaking the focus at times . The same can apply when going from shooting a sunspot straight on to shooting a prom on the limb , I will re tweak my focus for every different shot .

One more thing , you didn't forget about the extension tube that is built into your focuser did you ? If you did that would quickly explain why you could not reach focus .

[Thefatkitty]

Hey Mark ,

Changing the BF will not effect the focal length or focus , your etalon will need to be tunes fairly close to being on band before you will see enough detail to focus . Bring the disk into view so the limb is visible and make it as sharp as you can , then adjust the etalon to bring out the detail . You will likely likely have to tweak the focus once you have the etalon adjusted . As you know the etalon gives you the ability to tune for surface or proms , adjusting the etalon tuning can require tweaking the focus at times . The same can apply when going from shooting a sunspot straight on to shooting a prom on the limb , I will re tweak my focus for every different shot .

One more thing , you didn't forget about the extension tube that is built into your focuser did you ? If you did that would quickly explain why you could not reach focus .

Dude. One thing here.... !!! I just walked over to it, loosened the 2" to 1.25" screw, and out it came....Some days I can't see the forest for the trees!

I will let you know how that works out; probably splendidly

And it's actually pretty doable on my pipe mount too:

Thanks and my best to you both and the pooch!

[Thefatkitty]

Thanks,

Your images are really nice and best of luck with that ha setup, Great Solar seems to come in small expensive and careful steps.

I picked up a reconditioned dell laditude from 2014 an e6440 with dual ssd 1 tb twin bootable drives 16 g of ram and with the original 3.1 Ghz 4th gen i7, the upgrades will be 32 g of ram and a better processor if one can be found.

My new cam will be the Asi585mc at 8mp or four times the Asi385's resolution with 1/4 smaller pixels running usb 3, this moves my coloured disks Solar wedge imaging campaign away from the 70mm and on to the At80ed for yet another expected increase in resolution.

Really looking forward here Mark, indeed.

Nice deal Aaron, that should serve you well! Reconditioned is good and cheaper too. Truth be told, I found my desktop by the side of the road in January 2013. Still works great after 10+ years!

Great camera, and onto an 80mm! Looking forward to seeing what you get this winter, hopefully ol' Sol picks up on the activity

And I hope you get some clear skies and all the best,

[Thefatkitty]

This is a very good acquisition, I hope you will succeed in finding the focus, thx.

Merci mon ami, je le pensais aussi! Mike's post will certainly help with that

Comment est votre Lunt? I hope you've heard something by now....

Bonne nuit et semaine, mon ami!

[messier 111]

This is a very good acquisition, I hope you will succeed in finding the focus, thx.

Merci mon ami, je le pensais aussi! Mike's post will certainly help with that

Comment est votre Lunt? I hope you've heard something by now....

Bonne nuit et semaine, mon ami!

I haven't had any news for a while, but Fawe at Lunt wrote to me to tell me that the 80 mm was already on order. so I'm waiting.
thank you my friend .

[StarHugger]

Here is my starter,

My daughter found it at an end of the day garage sale give away a number of years ago, it was what was at hand last year when I decided to first attempt Solar imaging.

I did use it for eaa for a time so I knew it somewhat worked.

Its story is it was next to the stove when a grease fire melted the upper case just short of wrecking the screen and when panic insued to put the fire out they tossed it on the floor damaging the keyboard so only the trace pad and buttons s, h and x and only the numbers 1 & 2 and shift & enter, were functioning.

So all my files and program entries had to be named accordingly or automatically and to find the numbers and letters elsewhere that I needed and then copy and paste them in for program entries.

Like playing a guitar with 1 string, you can see the warped upper case in this shot.


So glad thats over, now I just have to wait for the laptop tech to finish going through everything, cleaning the fan and re thermo pasting the heat sink.

Hoping to hear back soon.

[Solsearcher]

,


Dude. One thing here.... !!! I just walked over to it, loosened the 2" to 1.25" screw, and out it came....Some days I can't see the forest for the trees!

I will let you know how that works out; probably splendidly

And it's actually pretty doable on my pipe mount too:


P04.jpg



Thanks and my best to you both and the pooch!

I am still laughing here but I am no better !! I first explained about tuning and focusing before I thought of the obvious and remembered the extension tube . I hope you get an opportunity to try it out soon and will look forward to reading your report!!

[Tillibobs]

It's a few days now since I've been able to drop by here. I don't feel to have all that long left so I tend to run my thoughts past my son before I make any purchase. I'd noticed that there was a crack on the keyboard of my laptop and the keyboard seemed bent. I wasn't sure how long it would last so with this thing called Black Friday I bought a Thinkpad. I'ts taking some pondering over but at last I'm here. The old Laptop gave up the ghost 2 days before the new replacement arrived.
Keith