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N1
26-10-2022, 10:41 AM
Further to the Conjunction effort 2 days earlier (https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=201298) and with Venus still less than a degree from the edge of the Sun, our big fellow Mats (9) and myself were looking at the blue sky yesterday and wondered what might be achievable if the "occulting bar" was replaced with a solar filter held some distance away from the objective. I had a 6" full-aperture Baader filter for my RC, which seemed suitable for the task of casting a sufficiently large "umbral" shadow onto the little Tak's objective about 5m below. The setup was as simple as they come - put scope with camera attached in shadow of solar filter, remove cap & press shutter release. I was the filter holder, Mats the shutter release guy, so image credit goes to him. The result is a picture the likes of which I don't recall seeing before:

The Sun (with detail) & Venus, in one single photo.

The only adjustments to the single frame(s) were to brightness & contrast levels. No stacking, no composites, no differential processing within the frame. Of course we actually took a whole heap of photos, and basically all of them show the same thing. After seeing it in the FS60's photos, I decided to attach the FC76 objective for a bit more reach.

We're pretty stoked with this.

Future efforts will involve clean optics and sensors and purpose-cut Baader film. This will do us for now for proof-of-concept though.

Dave882
26-10-2022, 10:57 AM
Woooooow! That’s incredible :eyepop:
What a great idea and we’ll executed too!!:thumbsup:

Derek Klepp
26-10-2022, 12:17 PM
Well done.

Tinderboxsky
26-10-2022, 02:10 PM
Excellent idea. Look forward to future refinements.

Tropo-Bob
26-10-2022, 04:36 PM
That is really something! Excellent!!

Averton
26-10-2022, 10:36 PM
That's a very interesting idea. Getting your shadow the right size to cover the sun but still have Venus outside the shadow must have been fun. The next idea could be something to cast a solid shadow and you've got yourself a coronagraph :)
Great work!!

N1
27-10-2022, 12:11 PM
Thanks all, yes it was a fun session that one.
Clare & Peter - yes I've been thinking of making myself a proper coronagraph eventually. One day that might happen. I do like the idea of still seeing the sun itself while observing objects close to it, so this approach too will be refined eventually. For now though, I enjoy every minute of astro that I can get; not easy with young kids and a busy family schedule.

Averton
28-10-2022, 06:15 PM
:thumbsup::thumbsup: