Sunspot activity- 06-11-06 - Heading straight for the path of Mercury

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Taken this morning before 09:00 EST. Hopefully they will be directly inline with the path of Mercury come Thursday morning.


Currently I am unable to setup my gear due to an injured back, so I must thank my fabulously wonderful wife for carrying my mount and scope up onto the back verandah and setting everything up for me.

I'll make an astronomer out of her yet.

First frame is prime focus ED80 and SAC 4.2 , full frame @ 18 fps but reduced from 1280>1000 wide in processing. The second frame is with 2X barlow and imaged using ROI @ around 25 fps. All images captured as RAW and converted to AVI with Catch 42

Seeing was pretty maybe 2/10. Ya get that

[iceman (Mike)]

Nice work Paul!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Here's a comparison using the ToUcam 840. I've tried not to bias the capture or processing, but for my mind the SAC is head and shoulders above the ToUcam in frame size, capture rate and quality of final image.

No great effort was made to make the SAC or ToUcam images better than the other. I just processed them as they came out, though I did use similar wavelets for each batch, both SAC and ToUcam

[ving (David)]

well done paul!!!
your wife gets the from me

spots and mercury... sounds exciting!
and the sun is out currently!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Thank guys

and the sun is out currently

Only for some ving

your wife gets the from me

She gets more than that from me, let me tell you. What a gal.

[ving (David)]

i havent been out in it mind you. i can see it thu the blinds

and somehow i have managed to get past 8k post without anyone noticing

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

and somehow i have managed to get past 8k post without anyone noticing

And you've been so quiet lately too Congrats ving


Here's another go at the ToUcam 2x Barlow. I applied a bit of unsharp masking in PS to try to bring out a bit more detail. It's a bit dark but I liked it that way

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

............
Currently I am unable to setup my gear due to an injured back, so I must thank my fabulously wonderful wife for carrying my mount and scope up onto the back verandah and setting everything up for me.

...............Seeing was pretty maybe 2/10. Ya get that

you lazy sod, if I asked my wife that she would, well , you know

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

these images auger well for the transit, hope the weather co-operates