Sol May 11th

[Quark (Trevor)]

Hi All,

Have been preparing for the Transit of Venus and found that there was not quite enough in travel of the focuser on the 16" in my observatory to get the job done.

Have resorted to an old 120mm refractor, the scope I used for the previous transit of the current pair. Had a full dress rehearsal today using all of the equipment I will need for June 6th. All worked well and there is a nice Sunspot cluster to boot.

Imaged with 120mm Refractor with my Canon 450D & Badder Solar filter, this is my first Solar image with this camera.
Hoping for a nice cloud free day for June 6th.

Thanks for looking.
Regards
Trevor

[Poita (Peter)]

I just spent most of my day looking through the PST at the sun.
Glad to see your imaging is ready to go, I am still having some issues.
I'm yet to sort a setup to get the whole disc in frame.
The sunspots were great to see today though, and there is a monster flare on one side, I'll try and post an image later.

[Dennis]

Hi Trevor

Nice work after such a long solar lay off – it must have been quite novel for you to image in the daytime, have that much light to play with and not give two hoots about disc rotation!

The disc looks a little wavy around the edges – is this a seeing artefact as the surface details look nice and crisp?

The disc looks evenly illuminated – I am struggling with my DSLR images as I have hot spots and gradients, signs of a non-flat field.

Cheers

Dennis

[Quark (Trevor)]

Originally Posted by Dennis

Hi Trevor

Nice work after such a long solar lay off – it must have been quite novel for you to image in the daytime, have that much light to play with and not give two hoots about disc rotation!

The disc looks a little wavy around the edges – is this a seeing artefact as the surface details look nice and crisp?

The disc looks evenly illuminated – I am struggling with my DSLR images as I have hot spots and gradients, signs of a non-flat field.

Cheers

Dennis

Thanks Dennis, it certainly is quite different imaging in daylight. I have very little experience with Solar imaging and most of that was on 35mm film a long time ago. In this instance I setup early and imaged over about 3 hrs just to see how this particular eq mount & drive performed along with my 450D. I really liked the ability of the Canon software to provide a live view on my laptop and to be able to zoom in on the Sunspot cluster and get real time feed back regarding focus. I was quite pleasantly surprised with the detail in just single 1/250 exposures given that all of my imaging is normally high frame rates as either avi or FIT file formats. Not to sure about the limb, it may have a lot to do with reducing the original 2.77mb, 3088 x 2056 pixel image to a 199kb 798 x 760 pixel image to post on the forum. The original image, when displayed at the size of the actual pixels doesn't go anywhere near fitting on my computer screen and the detail looks pretty good so I am hoping, weather permitting, to produce a poster size rendition of the Venus transit.

Originally Posted by Poita

I just spent most of my day looking through the PST at the sun.
Glad to see your imaging is ready to go, I am still having some issues.
I'm yet to sort a setup to get the whole disc in frame.
The sunspots were great to see today though, and there is a monster flare on one side, I'll try and post an image later.

Thanks Peter, it's not long now until the transit so i hope you are able to find a way to capture the whole disc and I look forward to seeing the flare.

[Rigel003 (Graeme)]

Nice image Trevor. You're such a master of planetary imaging, why don't you use a webcam for this and sharpen up those spots? Is the full disk perspective essential? I guess the transit will be so long you could use both methods.

[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

Hi Trevor - yes more Solar!!!! This transit will be well loved and I am very pleased to see all the interest around the place - good luck with the weather!!!!

[Quark (Trevor)]

Originally Posted by Rigel003

Nice image Trevor. You're such a master of planetary imaging, why don't you use a webcam for this and sharpen up those spots? Is the full disk perspective essential? I guess the transit will be so long you could use both methods.

Thanks Graeme, my Flea3 and even the old DMK are only 640 x 480 pixels. For me, the history behind this event is of great significance, not only to the discovery of Australia but the part it played in the history of astronomy so I really do want to capture the transit with the full Solar disc. Reckon it will make a nice poster to display in my observatory.

Originally Posted by Matt Wastell

Hi Trevor - yes more Solar!!!! This transit will be well loved and I am very pleased to see all the interest around the place - good luck with the weather!!!!

Thanks Matt, reckon there will be some amazing captures of this transit. I am not into Solar imaging but hope to create a reasonable record of the event with my 450D. I can only imagine what very hi res work will be done by you and the other Solar imagers here on IIS.

[StephenM (Stephen)]

Looks good Trevor! That reminds me, I need to put together a filter using the Baader film that I bought a few months ago!

Cheers,
Stephen