MiniSHG 050921

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Plagued all morning by clouds, showers and high winds!! Welcome to Vic in Winter.
Changed to the EDy (An old York ED80) with shorter focal length (560mm).
Imaging in H alpha , 18 sec scan in Declination.
All the current activity visible with the noticeable filaments and filaprom?
Did a stack of the Proms and surface, not too bad.

[John W (John Wilkinson)]

Lots of activity around the sun at the moment Ken - well reported.

[Saturn488]

Very nice. What equipment did you use?

[multiweb (Marc)]

Your pictures are getting sharper Ken. You seem to be dialing in the SHG nicely.

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Chrys et al,
Images acquired by a SHG.
This is a combination of the spectroscope and a telescope.
The solar disk is scanned by the spectroscope slit and recorded as an SER video. The software (INTI) then corrects any geometric issues and creates an images of the Sun in the selected wavelength. i.e. Ha, Na, Mg, Hb, CaK etc. etc.



There's a description of the MiniSHG on the astronomicalspectroscopy group:
https://groups.io/g/astronomicalspec.../message/17120


Basically a small spectrograph which fits in one hand (!) and weighs about 1.1Kg.

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Marc,
Thanks!
If the weather does ever allow more than a few seconds to do the scan I should be able to get slightly better (more resolution) results.
But, I admit, until I can get a 10 micron slit up and running, there will be limitations.
So far so good.
Onwards and Upwards.
Ken

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

John,
Thanks!
The SHG is proving very stable. Once it's set up say, for H alpha, and you know the "best" focus setting.
It's just a matter of doing the scan.
The software is continually improving (Doug and Matt need congratulations and recognition for the upgrades they have done). Now you can select a pixel offset to the central wavelength and effectively scan the solar disk from the blue wing to the red wing in one pass.
You can't easily do that with an etalon filter!!!

I've put a copy of an excellent GIF by Pascal Berteau in my Dropbox (2Mb)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j3bxq9mrh9...image.gif?dl=0

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Merlin66

John,
I've put a copy of an excellent GIF by Pascal Berteau in my Dropbox (2Mb)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j3bxq9mrh9...image.gif?dl=0

That's so cool.

[Eris (Gerard)]

Great results that are improving all the time Ken. Very well done.

[Saturnine (Jeff)]

Lovely work Ken, will have to check your images rather than Gong, they are just as good to my eyes.
Certainly more activity currently, lots of spots and proms.