ASI 178MM (cooled), Lunt CaK B600 LS6CAKMDS2, Skywatcher 72/420 ED-APO, mountpusher, EQ3-mod — not ideal, but enough to dig out some protuberances.

ASI 178MM (cooled), Lunt CaK B600 LS6CAKMDS2, Skywatcher 72/420 ED-APO, mountpusher, EQ3-mod

It took a lot of editing to dig out of the unfavorable dynamic range the prominences, but I think I did a decent job. ASI 178MM (cooled), Lunt CaK B600 LS6CAKMDS2, Skywatcher 72/420 ED-APO, mountpusher, EQ3-mod

There were a few relatively clear minutes around the Sun today, so the new gear, ASI 178MM (cooled), Lunt CaK B600 LS6CAKMDS2, Skywatcher 72/420 ED-APO, mountpusher, EQ3-mod got its chance to gather its first light. It is impressive how much more details and even prominences at the disk’s margin are almost readily visible. The B600 is very near to the limit of this setup, the vignetting is obvious when a bit misaligned. Next time one throws a big bag of money at my feet (don’t hit me with heavy bags, please), I’ll buy the B1200 or even the B1800. Even though the final image is, when viewed at a low resolution, looks similar to my previous ASI 178MM (cooled), Baader K-Line Filter 1.25″ (double stacked), TS-Optics 76/342 TS76EDPH, mountpusher, EQ3-mod images, the similarity arises without the post-processing, already in the live view. For the wider Baader filter, I apply an enhancement we might call “brighten is brighter than the context”, different from local contrast or global contrast application. Reflections and a bit of maybe astigmatism may be inherent to the system, but it’s something present in the Baader cell too.

(tovább…)