These two images were taken Saturday evening around 10PM a few minutes apart. Two cameras, my ASI120MC color and its brother the ASI120MM monochrome. Both have the same number of pixels, 1.2M, so the monochrome should provide better resolution. Focusing done remotely from the laptop. Both images were created from the best 20% of 2000 10ms frames stacked with AutoStakkert!2 and processed further in Photoshop. No Great Red Spot this time but plenty of other detail.
Here is a reasonably large sunspot group shot with my 80mm Celestron Onyx ED and ASI120 MM camera. I got the monochromatic camera to complement the color ASI120 MC camera I use for planets and it did a good job here. I got the scope and the light duty Celestron Nexstar mount with next year’s total solar eclipse in mind. All three performed well today although I have to work on my technique. I had to have Jack focus the scope while I ducked my head under a towel and peered at the laptop screen. I’m planning to get some easy to pop up canopy for the eclipse sometime and that would help here too. A better focuser might help. Not Jack, he did fine, but a dual speed replacement for the OEM focuser.
Wednesday night the clouds were starting to roll in for the start of five days of clouds so I grabbed my Canon SX50 HS with 1200 mm equivalent zoom and leaned against the car to get this shot. I was impressed by how much detail was there. I tweaked it a little in Photoshop, blackening the background and bringing out some details on the surface. Look how the rays from Tycho in the south can be seen across vast distances.
