Worth a look?

[ravnostic]

We’re having fires, as usual, so I couldn’t do deep sky. But I figured to take advantage of the smoke at sunset; and I think I dun good.

From the daily image at spaceweather.com, on left, and my camera, on right. Scaled best I can.

I see 6 sunspots with my monitor. YMMV. The streak is the long-longed for plane-in-transit-of-the-sun (or-moon), but with the horizon, it’s not very clear. I’ll take it, though ;o)

[orionid]

Nice. That’s about what I’m expecting my eclipse photos to look like, given time of evening, angle, and lineup for the transit. Meanwhile, my mom just left for hawaii, so I made sure she had a piece of double-coated mylar to hold in front of her point and shoot.

[ravnostic]

The smoke from the fire must be going another direction now; it’s pretty blue out there. I set the scope up to figure out how to work the video camera with it; epic fail. Damned FOV kills me every time.

Oh, well. Since I had the scope out, I took sun shots, and I think I got one that’s just sublime. Too big to post here, but I’ll link it. 1.7 Mb

http://fossilspringsaz.com/pics/2012/may/15/sun03.jpg

I think it’s my best capture of the sun, yet. Certainly lots of visual interest.

[CauseISaidSo]

Wow, that looks like something I’d expect to see on a NASA page, rav. What kind of filter do you put in front of the scope to get that kind of shot?

[ravnostic]

That’s a Baader filter. Essentially, a piece of mylar plastic with a fine quality coating of aluminum on both sides. Who’da thunk the sun could shine through aluminum? I guess people double up on mylar balloon material, but I wouldn’t trust my eyes to that. My camera sensor…yes. My eyes–no. And definitely not my telescope. Expensive bugger–have to put it in front of the scope, so it’s 11″ in diameter. The rest of it is choosing a temp of 10K, and hueing to the left, to give some warmer tones and better contrasts, and the luck of having one small moment of fine seeing and sharp focus. That’s not as easy as it sounds, I promise you.

[lokisbong]

Holy hells! That linked picture is a thing to be proud of. Very good work indeed.

[ravnostic]

Thanks, lokis. I am a wee bit proud of it. (Ikeed–I’m overjoyed to have taken it).

[chupathingie]

*applause* Yeah, the linked one is very nice! I like the one with the plane transit, too…

[ravnostic]

Did I mention this shot made the front page of http://www.spaceweather.com? Search the may 15th archive post. I was pretty proud.

Meanwhile, I was out today, and I captured this one. It’s a meg in size. I refuse to cheapen it by downsizing (until, of course, there’s a contest in which I can use it). I’m pretty sure you won’t see a better dragonfly image all week, or month even. I’m actually proud of this one.

//nevermind it’s the end of the week, or month even.

http://fossilspringsaz.com/pics/2012/jun/23/GR05dragonfull.jpg

Full resolution, cropped down to fill the frame. Hand held f/10 ISO200 1/250th second. Though his back seems bright, it’s not blown, per Elements and DPP at least.

[lokisbong]

Very nice dragonfly shot.

[Barracuda]

Very nice dragonfly. I’ve got a few dragonfly captures from this morning I need to get pulled off the camera.

[ravnostic]

It’s a spot I’ll visit again, lokisbong and Barracuda

[orionid]

+1

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