Active Regions 1719 and 1723 with new ZWO ASI120MM. Brisbane 17th April 2013

[Dennis]

Hello,

My ZWO ASI120MM arrived this morning so I set up for a quick solar imaging session to see how this CCD camera would perform. I was very impressed with the order processing and delivery from ZWO.

Here are some images of AR 1719 and 1723 taken under good but variable seeing. I downloaded and used SharpCap (thanks for the heads up Allan) as the camera control application and for a 1st light, I was quite pleased with the results.

The ASI120MM was littered with dust specks and I had to dismount and clean it 5 times to progressively reduce the amount of dust/debris before I considered it worth proceeding. Even then, some 3 or 4 small, stubborn dust spots remain.

Taken at prime focus of Tak Mewlon 180 F12 and with a Tak Extender x1.6 although the seeing didn’t really favour the x1.6 image scale. From memory, the stacks were between 250 and 300 frames from 3000 frame AVI's.

Cheers

Dennis

[Paul Haese]

Nice going Dennis. Good detail and the camera seems to be suitable for this sort of work.

[h0ughy (David)]

ooh thats really really awesome. what was it humming at when you were capturing?

[gbeal]

Great shots Dennis. AstroSolar film, and ND3.8 or ND5? Or wedge?
I'm hankering to get a few white light myself.
Gary

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

Nice going Dennis. Good detail and the camera seems to be suitable for this sort of work.

Thanks Paul – the pixels are 3.75um versus the 4.65um of my DMK31AF04.AS so in theory, I get to place more pixels on each feature.

Cheers

Dennis

Originally Posted by h0ughy

ooh thats really really awesome. what was it humming at when you were capturing?

Hi David

Here are the contents of a couple of the .txt files. I noticed I was getting around 28 frames per second with only 2 or 3 dropped frames in a 3000 frame run.

Cheers

Dennis

[ASI120MM Camera (ZWO Design)]
Frame Divisor=1
Resolution=1280x960
Frame Rate (fps)=Maximum
Colour Space / Compression=MONO8
Pan=0
Tilt=0
Exposure (s)=0.01561
Brightness=0
Gamma=50
Gain=10

[ASI120MM Camera (ZWO Design)]
Frame Divisor=1
Resolution=1280x960
Frame Rate (fps)=Maximum
Colour Space / Compression=MONO8
Pan=0
Tilt=0
Exposure (s)=0.006047
Brightness=0
Gamma=50
Gain=11

Originally Posted by gbeal

Great shots Dennis. AstroSolar film, and ND3.8 or ND5? Or wedge?
I'm hankering to get a few white light myself.
Gary

Hi Gary

Taken with the Baader Astro Solar Film Density 3.8 for astrophotography and I also fitted a Baader 1 ¼ inch Solar Continuum Filter on the nosepiece.

Cheers

Dennis

[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

A fantastic job indeed! Thanks for the views.

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by Matt Wastell

A fantastic job indeed! Thanks for the views.

Thanks Matt, I enjoyed a nice spell this morning.... before mowing the lawns and fixing the pantry doors!

Cheers

Dennis

[Derek Klepp]

Interesting results Dennis with the camera. I just love the structure you get with your setup.

[allan gould]

Glad the camera appears to be a winner for you Dennis. A lot of serious imagers also use FireCapture and although I havnt used it seriously I think that it could also be of great use for imaging with the ASI120MM.
Allan

[Ciarlotto (Nunzio)]

Good work!
ASI camera is a great performer on the Sun: I notice a lot of details in sunspots, beatiful faculae and perfect granulation... This week I took some shoots on the Sun by using a similar set up (except for the Mewlon 180... I used a Mak 127) and I was surprised by the clear images obtained with this camera. Undoubtely a great sun performer.

[Dennis]

Thank you Derek, Allan and Ciarlotto, I appreciate your comments.

So far I haven’t noticed a “game changing” difference between my DMK31AF04 and the ASI120MM in terms of image quality, but my sample size is only one solar imaging session!

What I did notice is that flecks of the red aluminium anodizing kept appearing on the screw threads of the 1 ¼ inch eyepiece adapter, so I mated and unmated these several times and cleaned the parts to minimise the potential of debris landing on the chip window.

One of the main reasons for acquiring the ZWO ASI120MM was that I needed to move from my DMK Firewire units to a USB camera. Of course, the price was very attractive!

Cheers

Dennis