The Sun 4/18/2017

Although we're well past SolarMax and the solar disk looks blank on many days, it can still be interesting in H-alpha. This is a single-image capture (not a stack) taken with the DS16C and PST-DS. The active area and prominence at the top of the image is sunspot 2644, a returning spot that produced a number of M-Class flares in early April.

The illumination of the image is somewhat uneven. This lack of uniformity is caused by the PST filter's "sweet spot." The DS filter reduces this effect, but it does not eliminate it. For the best aesthetic images of the sun with the PST, it's better to stitch together a mosaic of separate captures of separate areas of the solar disk.

2/18/17 Imaging Session

It's been a while since I posted here. The winter has not been good here in Indiana, and the Spring has been mostly cloudy with clear skies coinciding with full moons and evening events that kept me from the scope.

Here's a few images I captured on an unseasonably warm February evening. These pix were captured with the 8 inch f/4 astrograph and Mallincam DS 16c.

The Crab Nebula

This image shows the Crab as captured by the DS16c. The combination of F/4 scope and large imaging ship captures a very wide field. It's not ideal for the Crab and other small planetary nebulae, but for large objects, like M42 (below), it is a perfect combination.

Orion Nebula

The wide field is also useful for capturing groupings of objects, as in this image of the Cigar Galaxy and Bode's Galaxy:

Bode's Galaxy and the Cigar Galaxy