Vixen M80 2nd light (Ed Astle)

Vixen M80 2nd light

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Here I added the "double stack" - the 2nd Lunt etalon at the rear.
It's nowhere near good enough. I tuned for ages and nothing came good of it.

Note the bright L on the left.
This turned out to be because my EO 0.5nm filter was not perfectly flat within its housing.

The EO 25mm filter has no threads and would fall out of the 1.25" (25.4mm) nose I placed it inside of.
This nose screws onto the front of the Baader TZ4S, which is roughly where Baader's own Ha blocking filter goes.
I pushed an O-ring into the base of the 1.25" nose (to stop the filter falling out), put the EO on top of that, then another O-ring to fix the EO inside.
However the O-ring was such a tight fit it had crimped and very slightly deformed, causing a tiny bulge, causing a tilt of the filter.
Tilt changes the bandpass of a filter. This can be very useful - but not here.

I've since replaced the bottom O-ring with the 1.25" glass taken out of my Altair UV/IR filter. That should be a very flat base for it.
Pure transparent glass would do but I didn't have any.

Final
Original
B

B

Title: Revision #2 - with curves applied

Description: Curves applied in Photoshop, but any image editor would do.

I pulled the brightness down (subtly and sympathetically, I hope) to check if the first light of my Lunt40 double stack had any redeeming features. I think it just might!

The bright "L" will hopefully be fixed for the next session.
My original "homemade trim filter" used a rubber O-ring to seat the Edmund Optics 656.3/0.5nm filter but it wasn't perfectly flat. I've replaced that bottom O-ring with flat glass taken from a UV/UR cut filter. No Sun seen since but fingers crossed that fixes it.

I wonder if I tuned my double stack incorrectly.
I tuned the first Lunt40 as best I could.
I then placed the second Lunt ahead of the first (ie away from myself closer to the scope).
Perhaps I should have left the first one attached to the TZ4S so the CWL it was getting didn't change.
Maybe putting new optics in front of the tuned etalon affected the CWL it now gets.
Next time I'll tune #1 and leave it where it is, then tune #2 behind it.
DS is new to me - much to learn...

My first attempt at doing a revision.

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