This is not exactly astronomical, but then it's still a result of extra-terrestial stream of high energy particles. This is probably the first time I captured some but it's not visible in the light polluted front yard.
It's only taken handheld from my home with a mobile phone.
Very windy, again on the new pier. Faster setup time, and the pier is very stable!
Taken with the 1.6x Baader barlows, poorly mosaic of four frames from 1632 to 1637 (UT+1), cloud moving quickly making mosaic very difficult, more like testing the setup.
Prominence only, merged by two frames, not stitched perfectly so it was made dimmer to hide the artifacts, 0948 and 0949 (UT+1)
Next up is the close up of the active regions
0954 (UT+1)
0955 (UT+1)
All taken with ASI 462mm with the Baader 1.6x Q barlows and here is my new setup:
The pier is fixed on the floor, the mount is removable and stored inside the house.
Less than perfect sky, captured a few short exposures, probably below 10s each, stacked together to form the above before the comet sinked below neighbour's roof. Just a record.
Canon FD 300mm f2.8L DIY modified to fit on my Canon 70D, tracked but unguided.
New monochromatic camera arrived, much faster frame rate and slightly cleaner images.
Seeing 6/10, transparency 6/10.
Full disc at 1023 (GMT), reducer still required for full disc:
The new baby arrived, gonna test it despite the poor sky condition, I would say seeing 3/10 with transparency 5/10.
I am adjusting myself on the transparency rating, and if I were still in Hong Kong, I would say it's 6//10 and if I were to compare with the previous clear nights, I would say it's more like 3-4/10, even Orion was not too visible to the naked eyes.
With the strong tripod, the mount was steady enough for the Meade 8" SCT. Focusing was tricky anyway, the mirror shift worsen the problem further but that was doable with patience. Patience is cool weather came with a price, especially when you couldn't use the glove.
Anyway, here were the results. First up were prime focus shots on the moon, given the pixel size of 2.9um, the optimal sampling would be like f/14.5 so f/10 is a bit under sampled.
Next up was the Jupiter, I've to adjust my Rigel Quik Finder in order to point at the Jupiter properly, the flip mirror did help but still requires some effort. Adding a 2x barlows means oversampling.
First up is a f/10 shot, but with the flip mirror, I expect it works longer than f/10.
The Jovian satellites were smeared by the wind current. Pushing up with a 2x barlows did not reveal any more detail but worsen actually.
I will try to attach the barlows lens cell to different locations of the optical chain to find an optimal one when weather permits again.
Transparency dropped, cloud rolled in before getting more signal, yet another test shot, no dark no flat.
