1476...Day 4

Still going strong after 4 days

Sunspot 1476...Day 3

Still there! That thing is a monster!

Sunspot 1476, Day 2

The big one is still there, clouds cleared (sort of) for just a few minutes, long enough for a 1:00 closeup and 30 second disk.

Sunspot 1476

Shot at 5:00pm est, this is the biggest one I have seen so far.

No Observing Tonight!

Sun 5.2.12

Lunch break Sun

The Sun on lunch break

And a much better process of the close up, only used best 500 frames to stack.

YUK!

A little Sun on my lunch break

The sun popped out during lunch and I captured a few shots. 3 frames combined, 25000 frames each with Rocal Reducer, digital camera and 20mm EP. The brightness plays havoc on the white balance of the camera, it kept switching back and forth. Colorized in Gimp.

A little Saturn in an unexpected clear bit of sky

Didn't get to use the "new" method but still was able to capture a little Saturn, 10mm plossl with barlow threaded to EP.

Mars Afocal 4.19.12

I tried a new technique for Afocal, pretty unorthodox. I found a usb video capture cable on the net for 17 bucks and plugged that into the digital camera. This allows me to use the manual mode on the camera and adjust the exopsure, etc... and see the live results in Sharpcap and to capture the video at 720x480 AVI, instead of the 640x480 mpeg in the camera. Although I was hoping for better, it was a good test. Seeing was not very good, and I still need to experiment with the settings more. It's certainly better than I have been able to get with the digital camera so far.
Sony Cybershot 7 MP
10mm with barlow threaded to bottom of EP
10" SCT
USB capture cable to Sharpcap
Tried a couple of different zoom levels.

Sunspots with a Webcam

Break in the clouds for just a moment, so rushed out and hooked up the webcam for the 1st time and got a couple of quick shots. Focus is a bit off, it's hard to focus on the sun!

1st Solar Image

Da Sun, there were a bunch of dust spots I tried to clean up in Gimp.
 Captured a couple of sunspots, and faculae.
Sunspots 1459 and 1458 4/15/2012

Mars and saturn 4/6/12

7MP digital camera connected to eyepiece, 3 minute videos stacked in Registax

Moon Jupiter and Venus 3/26/12

Digital Camera

Flame Nebula - with a reflection artifact

Manually guided with 60mm refactor - 8 2:00 min exposures

M51 - 1st try

40 30 second exposures stacked in DSS, can't wait to try this one again

Jupiter Mars and Saturn with digital camera

7MP Sony Cybershot 15mm EP with 2x barlow threaded. Afocal.

M42 with Point n shoot

The Orion Nebula afocal with the 7MP sony cybershot. 8 exposures @ 30 seconds, 20mm EP, 10" SCT, flats. Stacked in DSS, stretched in Fitswork, final layer mask and tweaking in Gimp. Click for larger image.
 The little fuzzy spot toward the bottom of the previous picture is this.

Orion Constellation just digital camera

Put the point n shoot 7MP sony cybershot camera on the telescope for tracking and took 16 30 second exposures with the 3x optical zoom at ISO 400. Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker,edited in Fitswork and Gimp. No flats or darks, just jpegs! The star colors were originally really blue, guess that's camera CA?. This is my 1st widefield attempt and with a DSLR should be stupendously better, but still, I was proud of my little 7mp Sony.
 The fuzzy spot towards the bottom is M42, the Orion Nebula.

1st attempt at Mars

10mm Ep with barlow lens screwed in. Sony cybershot digital camera. 400 frames each. Bad seeing, thin clouds passing in front of the planet while shooting.

Moon Venus and Jupiter 2/24/12

Set the digital camera on the wife's car in the driveway. 8 second exposure

Moon Mosaic Crop

Jupiter 2.2.12

Jupiter afocal with 7MP digital camera, 17mm plossl and barlow lens threaded to eyepiece.

Webcam Lunar Mosaic 2.2.12

Using the $20 donated webcam I attempted the 1st mosaic, just wandered around the moon taking pics, will go for a total mosaic later.