[iceman (Mike)]

Hi all

Today I finally got to capture my (second) first light with my PST. I used my DMK21AU04 with the lens of a Meade 140 2x barlow screwed into the DMK nosepiece to allow it come to focus.
I haven't had a chance to grind down the nosepiece to allow it to come to focus at prime focus.

I also tried my DMK41AF02, and while I could get it to work at 3.75fps, it wouldn't work at 7.5 or 15fps. Need to figure out what's going on there.

There's a little activity on the Sun today, a few proms and filaments and an active region too.

Finding the right exposure for the surface and the proms is difficult, and the PST does have that "hot spot" with a much brighter area than other areas. Trying to flatten that out during processing is a challenge but it doesn't look too bad now.

Only my first attempt at processing solar H-a images, and trying to balance the sharpness, contrast, colour, whether to have the "glow" on the proms exposure etc, is all trial and error and personal preference.

I chose to have the "glow" still visible as I felt it gave the sun a bit more "presence". I might change my mind next time.

Anyway here's the images. The second one is an inverted version of the first.

Thanks for looking. It's nice to be able to post something again. Comments and suggestions welcome.