Imaging the Sun in white light with an SV705C.

A motor-focus modified Skymax127 Maksutov was fitted with a photographic grade Baader solar filter. An SV705C, fitted with an IR/UV cut filter was placed at the Cassegrain focus.

The equipment

Showing electronic solar finder

The electronic finder comprised an SV905C CMOS camera connected to an Angeleyes solar finder by means of a Barlow body.

The cable management was organised as usual so that the weight of the imaging cables did not pull down under gravity with the possibility of introducing torque forces on the imaging camera and causing slippage and rotation. The cables are supported in such a way that their weight is born entirely by the mount and not by the scope. Another advantageous result of this setup is that tracking is improved.

On a previous night the scope/camera was focused on the bright star Altair using a Bahtinov mask to achieve optimal focus.

This focus was retained until this solar imaging session.

Two instances of AstroDMx Capture were run for a short time. One streaming data from the SV705C imaging camera and the other streaming data from the SV905C based electronic solar finder.

Data streaming from the solar finder

The Sun is centred in the finder which is fairly well co-aligned with the imaging scope and placed the Sun on the sensor of the imagin camera.

Data streaming from the imaging SV705C camera.

When the Sun has been acquired in the imaging camera’s field of view, the second instance of AstroDMx Capture is no longe