Testing Bortle 4

 I live in bortle 8-9 area of the city. So any photo without a filter is not an option. But this weekend, I went with a couple of friends far into the woods on the border with Sweden. Where it is much darker. Not like Namibia, but better than most places close to the city.

I did my imaging with a SharpStar 94EDPH with a 0.8 reducer giving 414mm focal length. The camera was my new ASI585MC Pro cooled to -10 degrees. Gain 252. I decided on the comet, M33 and M45. The comet was just setting into the forest. But I managed to get 30 minutes. 

Then i shifted to my 200mm Klevtzov for some closesup timelapse of Jupiter. Unfortunately, I didn't have software for guiding on the planet, so I had to manually guide. And at nearly 2 am, I was ready for bed. So I just got a short timelapse, before I packed up and went to bed. It had been a great night.

I used my ASi715MC camera for this. 4500 images per video, 1 minute interval. I used 10% best of the images.

Double the stack, double the fun!

 Not quite finished yet, but I have converted my h alpha scope to double stacking. It definitely needs some tuning of the filters to work properly. And probably something else too. But it definitely looks promising, as the following 2 hour timelapse shows. Click on the GIF to view larger and more detailed. Enjoy!

Sunspot september 6th

 Clear skies = sun timelapse. Same gear as always. But slightly different processing and sharpening. The result was better than usual me thinks.

Loopy loop

I found  loop on the limb of the sun. I took 90 minutes of timelapse videos with my usual gear. It turned out to be nice! Enjoy!

Solar activity

 Long time since I have done anything here. But yesterday, I managed to film some very nice prominences. One was a giant loop that flung out of the surface of the Sun. And on the other side of the Sun, I found a "waterfall" prominence. I shot all of this with my homemade 5" h-alpha telescope. Using a ASI178MM camera. I used gain 350 and 10ms exposures for the prominences, and gain 200 and 7ms exposures for the surface. Stabilization was a bit tricky, but with a combination of imPPG and PIPP, I managed to get them semi-stable. All timelapses covers about 1 hour. I did them longer, but guiding failed midway, so they started "wandering", cutting the timelapses short.

Jupiter rollin'

 Last night, the skies finally cleared without the risk of sudden snow. So I decided to whip out my Klevtson and pull a timelapse of Jupiter. According to the stats, the GRS would transit during the timelapse. And there it was. Unfortunately, some clouds, both thin and thick, passed in front of Jupiter. So the processing was a bit distorted. And thats why the timelapse looks like it is "blinking" at times. But all in all, I am satisfied with the result. The timelapse is taken over the course of about 2.5 hours.

Tech details : 200mm Klevtsov-Cass, ASI678MC camera at 200 gain and 4ms exposures. Approx 100 30 second movies. Stacked the best 50% of the images. Stacked in AS!3. Wavelet and rgb balance in Registax. Animation in PIPP.

Fiery sun June 9th

 Yesterday, the "boring" prominences from the day before suddenly blossomed and became quite active. Sputtering plasma around. Unfortunately, some clouds rolled in, so I had to cut it short. But later in the afternoon, I started filming an area around a sunspot. And I am glad I did. It flared up at the end of my run. The Sun was getting low, so there was a lot of turbulence. But it is still acceptable quality.