Contains:  Solar system body or event
Thanksgiving Day Sunspots 2785 & 2786, ken_and_sara

Thanksgiving Day Sunspots 2785 & 2786

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging
Thanksgiving Day Sunspots 2785 & 2786, ken_and_sara

Thanksgiving Day Sunspots 2785 & 2786

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

Thanksgiving day - two of the three sunspots visible that day.

It's always worth performing polar alignment the night before to eliminate drift - my setup is not permanent.

I was quite happy to catch the light bridge that stretches across the larger sunspot.

This was best 10% of 1,000 frames. I took about 30 videos of this length with various compositions and framing. This one came out to be the most interesting - partly because for the first time I got the (horribly overpriced) Daystar Reducer to come to focus.

Previously I did not have the requisite extenders to achieve focus. I used a TeleVue 3.5" extender in the telescope drawtube (in front of the Quark) and a TeleVue 2" extender on the back end of the Quark, between the Daystar reducer and the camera.

The TeleVue extenders are pricey, but in imaging situations like this where every movement counts in a long image train, they are really worth the firm stability that the TeleVue's provide, where securing by screw threads is not an option. The entire telescope assembly is over 4 feet long as a straight through configuration, from the front-mounted Energy Rejection Filter to the camera.

A note about flats: I need to start using them. I even bought a new diffuser from Daystar:

https://daystarfilters.com/FlatCap/Index.shtml

Still, I could not achieve a well-corrected image with PixInsight this way. More experimentation required.

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Thanksgiving Day Sunspots 2785 & 2786, ken_and_sara

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