|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Solar Flare Imaging for Amateurs
Amateur solar flare imaging is on my list of
things to do. The problem becomes how to size and control a sun cover disk in the telescope. This is the "blanking" disk in the telescope. My solution is to cover the sun with an x by y rectangular card. A control screw will move the card edge toward and away from the target peak point on the sun. One point of the sun's corona exposed. Although this causes a rather limited view of flares, it fully allows flares to be imaged. My telescope is having its Magnesium Oxide film removed and replaced. The project is a ball of mine. It will be a manual control. |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Solar Flare Imaging for Amateurs
On Wednesday, March 14, 2018 at 5:31:51 PM UTC-4, wrot=
e: Amateur solar flare imaging is on my list of things to do. The problem becomes how to size and control a sun cover disk in the telescope. This is the "blanking" disk in the telescope. =20 My solution is to cover the sun with an x by y rectangular card. A control screw will move the card edge toward and away from the target peak=20 point on the sun. One point of the sun's corona exposed. =20 Although this causes a rather limited view of flares, it fully allows flares to be imaged. =20 My telescope is having its Magnesium Oxide film removed and replaced. The project is a ball of mine. It will be a manual control. I was thinking home brew pin hole camera. But in this case the pin hole is to bring the amount of light within the dynamic range of a computer security cam that has zoom , right left up down pan abilities. Now you can look at the sun all day from the comfort of your computer desk. Even take a snap shot now and then if you see something interesting. [[Mod. note -- A big concern in the design of any solar telescope is that if you focus all (or even a substantial fraction) of the sunlight incident on a reasonable aperature into a small focal plane, you get *very* intense light and heat. It's essential to reject this safely & reliably. And any mechanical or software failure in the blocking mechanism could expose your detector (whether some sort of camera, or a human eye) to dangerous light levels. People have suffered permanent eye damage when a solar filter cracked or came loose from a solar-telescope entrance aperature. In contrast, a pinhole camera should be safe enough *if* the pinhole is mechanically robust (i.e., you can be certain it won't fall out of position). -- jt]] |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Solar Flare Imaging for Amateurs
On Tuesday, March 20, 2018 at 12:03:46 PM UTC, Steve Willner wrote:
In article , writes: Amateur solar flare imaging is on my list of things to do. If you are talking about white light imaging, aren't such flares rare? Incredibly rare. At high altitude observatories in the very clearest mountain air it is sometimes possible to catch a large H-alpha solar flare when the sun is hidden behind a mountain. They look pinkish. Baader planetariums catalogue of solar gear in the late 1990's had an example photo taken of a big flare with no filters as a sliver of the photosphere was just coming into view. Obviously this is quite a dangerous thing to do. I'd expect glare from atmospheric narrow angle scattering of the photosphere to prevent you from seeing anything useful at anything less than 3000m (except during a total solar eclipse). The OP may be best off eclipse chasing. The problem becomes how to size and control a sun cover disk in the telescope. As the moderator wrote, you don't want to botch this! Two sensible options are full-aperture filters and eyepiece projection. Using any kind of focal-plane blocker is risky. If you have to ask for advice, you shouldn't be doing it. The cheapest option that will work reliably is a full aperture energy rejection filter over the objective and a precision narrowband filter in the convergent beam. A 2A (0.2nm) bandwidth is good enough to see limb prominences. You might want to consider H-alpha imaging. That's safer (if your filter is sound), and I believe H-alpha flares are more common than white light flares. It is much safer but making your own H-alpha telescope is a challenge since you cannot afford to take any chances with your eyesight. Something like this Coronado scope will allow the OP to see solar prominences with minimal risk. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...Personal.html#! (other brands are available) I built my own prominence scope using an early prototype filter from Coronado. There must be lots of internet resources on "solar imaging." I expect you can get better answers in sci.astro.amateur if that group is still active. It is still there but it is hardly active these days - overrun with cranks Regards, Martin Brown (posted via Google groups as my newsreader if playing up) |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Solar Flare Imaging for Amateurs
Thanks for the reference to the Coronado telescope..
My first steps are to get images. I will begin with white light and design/buy a remote mounting system. I want to put a color monitor by my TV set and take video or still images. The Coronado telescope referenced is obviously the best way to start imaging a prominence. I will never be looking thru an eyepiece so cooking the camera is my only variable. Scientifically there is little I can add using my images. Testing sunlight for the existence of correlated light is possible with a simple interference optics table. But that is a job for a real scientist. Designing the sensor to image, in 2D, correlated light is something I can help with if anybody needs my help to do this. I am a mechanical kind of guy. I am an artist, btw. I consider a color filtration of sunlight to be a real artistic creation. I would design a scheme of filtration using a set of N filters. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
INCOMING SOLAR STORM: A strong M6-class solar flare on April 11th.... | Sam Wormley[_2_] | Amateur Astronomy | 0 | April 11th 13 08:32 PM |
SOLAR ACTIVITY: An M1-class solar flare erupted Monday at 0800 UT | Sam Wormley | Amateur Astronomy | 2 | July 13th 04 03:54 AM |
Another solar storm reaches Earth; largest flare on record/It's official:the biggest solar X-ray flare ever is classified as X28 (Forwarded) | Andrew Yee | Astronomy Misc | 0 | November 7th 03 02:09 PM |
Another giant solar explosion follows Tuesday's enormous solar flare(Forwarded) | Andrew Yee | Astronomy Misc | 0 | October 30th 03 04:54 PM |
Solar Active Region Produces Intense Solar Flare | Ron Baalke | Misc | 0 | October 28th 03 07:29 PM |