When you want to see the stars, find someplace dark
Yes, DarkerView has been a solar eclipse blog over the last couple weeks. No worries, it will soon be over and regular programming will resume… After the obligatory photos from the eclipse expedition!
Total Solar Eclipse 2017
Eclipse Observing Checklist
The Eclipse Plan
Safe Eclipse Viewing
Two Solar Film Filters
Countdown to the Eclipse
The Sun on Eclipse Day
The Solar Corona on Eclipse Day
Correcting a Baader Solar Film Solar Image
The Eclipse Petroglyph
Hodgepodge
Miss any?
In the end it is a Celestron C8 telescope drive and forks containing custom electronics, a Meade heavy duty wedge from an LX-90, a hand-made tripod, holding a Televue 76mm APO telescope, using a Vixen style dovetail base, with a Baader film solar filter.
It is tempting to call it Frankenscope after the similarities with the classic monster.
To further add the the Mary Shelley plot similarities, much of this was revived from the junk pile. I very nearly decided to toss the drive and fork, they were that bad, peeling paint and rusty bolts. A great deal of work was necessary to re-animate these components.
The wedge came from a telescope that was killed in an unfortunate incident with an aquarium heater. The heater was used to de-humidify the OTA and prevent fungus on the optics. Note: Aquarium heaters are not made to operate out of water.
Several new aluminum parts were machined from scraps, some of which were scavenged when the observatory shop was being cleaned out and a lot of metal stock was tossed.
Many of the electronic components used to build the drive corrector were also scavenged parts from dead electronics, this includes the 1.8432MHz crystal that forms it’s beating heart. This heartbeat keeps the mount turning at exactly sidereal rate.
Yeah, you could call it Frankenscope.
But I will call it Hodgepodge.
Take a photo with a thin film solar filter and you get a blue-white image of the Sun. Correcting this to a yellow gold image is fairly simple in most any photo processing package.
Color is a fluid subject, simply our interpretation of frequency across a very small slice of the electromagnetic spectrum. As such there is no absolute right and wrong, just a set of conventions we normally use.
The issue is that people expect the Sun to be yellow-gold. Present an image of the Sun in any other hue and it is rejected as fake, or false color. We are accustomed to certain visual cues to identify and interpret our world, color is a major part of that. Unless you want to argue with a million people or two, you are better off making your Sun photos yellow-gold.
Continue reading “Correcting a Baader Solar Film Solar Image”
With a quiet Sun, no active sunspot regions on the face or limb of the visible disk, one wonders what the solar corona will look like. What will we see when the Moon blots out the Sun and the corona is revealed.
Just up the hill from me is the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory. I know a couple folks that work there and have toured the facility. MLSO is a fairly modest telescope equipped with some very specialized instruments. This telescope stares at the Sun all day, every day, monitoring our star as part of a worldwide network of solar observatories.
When travelling to an eclipse, one solar filter is not enough. I need a backup!
Having the two filters available for use mean I must choose between them when the moment is critical. Which is better? Some testing is in order to find out.
The two filters appear very different, the thin silver film of the Baader quite different than the thicker black polymer film of the Orion filter. Both filters are safe to use and provide decent solar viewing. Both provided pleasing solar images using my Televue 76mm APO telescope at low and medium power.
Stepping beyond basic use I do find that they perform quite differently. So differently I felt some notes are in order.
While the total phase of this month’s total solar eclipse can be viewed directly without protection, as soon as the Sun peeks out from behind the Moon you will need a safe way to view the Sun. That means a proper, and safe viewing method.
Personally? I will have a small telescope with a filter available for viewing and photography, along with proper solar sunglasses available to monitor the partial phases as the eclipse begins.
On August 21 this year a total solar eclipse will sweep cross the mainland United States, something that has not happened since 1979.
Our plan for this eclipse? A little preliminary yet, but starting to shape up. Eastern Oregon should provide a good chance for a clear view in August. Stay in the LaGrande area with family, heading south on eclipse day to a good vantage point near the center-line. Most likely somewhere south of Baker, Oregon. There are a lot of high elevation meadows and mountain roads that should provide a memorable place from which to view this eclipse.
