The Sun today - 9 August 2009

[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

Well after a bit of a solar drought I was inspired to get out today.
I had about 1 hour while my son Flinders was having his afternoon nap.
Although the sun was quiet, I managed to capture 2 filaments and a nice prominence. I wish I had more time to capture AVI's but I did enjoy the short session.
Any tips on how to make viewing the computer screen easier - I struggle with this and have tried blankets (like old school photography)?

Solarmax 40, 2.5 Powermate with DMK21 mono imager.

See ya

[renormalised (Carl)]

You can get shields that you attach to the screen that cover the front. They'll also shield your keyboard from the Sun if you sit at the right orientation.. Actually, you could make one out of heavy paper or thin cardboard and paint it flat black on the inside.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Nice shots Matt.

you might be able to modify this for your purpose
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-360-0-0-1-0.html

[astroron (Ron)]

Nice pic's Matt, thanks

[Liz]

Thank you Matt - nice to see some visuals of our Sun.

[sheeny (Al)]

Good to see some Sol! Nice work... I must make time to give the PST a run... Too many things to do and not enough sun spots.

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

Nice shots Matt.

you might be able to modify this for your purpose
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-360-0-0-1-0.html

You beat me to it, Paul!

Al.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

And they reacon qlders are slow. HA!

[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

Thanks all.

I will give the box idea a go - I am not overly handy but looks manageable.

Should make the on screen images much easier to view.

Happy viewing.

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

This has worked well for me over the last couple of years!
A 20l grey plastic tub, the lid is hinged with Gaffa tape and held open with a bit of fence wire.
The old blue sheet normally sits over the mounting during storage and double as a "black out" when thrown over the tub.
Allows the laptop to sit nicely with mininal stray light on the screen.
I can control the HEQ5pro and the camera from the seat....
I now have the SM60 ( double stack) mounted on an ED80 and a second ED80 with a 1000 Oak white light filter on a dual bar...

[Quark (Trevor)]

Well done Matt,

Nice orange peal effect and the like the image of the prominence.

Cheers
Trevor

[noice (Michael)]

Hi,

nice images Matt! I like the first one the most!

Like the other writers, I built boxes for solar imaging. I don't do this anymore. Don't take this as a commercial. There's a "self unfolding" notebook tent available called "iCap". It became very popular amongst astro imagers in germany lately, not bounded to solar imaging, but primarily.

The folded tent resides in a disc shaped bag, about 7" or so in diameter. When opening the bag, the tent just pops out, ready to go. Folding back into the bag is a matter of seconds. Weight is next to nothing. My Thinkpad T43 keeps cool inside the tent and so should other notebooks. And last but not least, it's as easy to see the content of the screen and working is just like under normal indoor light situations.

I could take some images of the tent or videos of the unfolding process? Could not find that on the net