After far too long, I've finally gotten my first look at the sun through my own telescope.
My setup: Orion 50 f/4 guide scope -> Baader UV/IR filter -> Daystar Quark Chromosphere -> ASI174MM, mounted on pipe clamps from McMaster-Carr on a HEQ5 mount. It's controlled by a Eagle 2 computer. Everything but the camera is second-hand.
The good: I saw the sun. I opened up my eyes and I saw the sun. Life is demanding, especially with my lack of understanding. Also, Windows Remote Desktop is marvellous.
The bad: The focuser on this guide scope is not great. It's so fiddly and fine that I simply focused through the plane back and forth a million times before giving up for the day.
The ugly: The learning curve is like using Linux. As a person who considers themselves to be technically competent who literally Sciences for a living, I was blown away at how much effort was involved, particularly in software. Briefly:
- One does not simply wipe the Windows installation off of a used Eagle computer, especially one that's old. It's an Internet Of Things distribution, which is great for being lightweight. However, Primaluce Labs doesn't support the Eagle 2 anymore, so even with the Windows sticker of authenticity, finding a usable version of Windows was dicey. Even once I got it installed there were driver issues aplenty.
- I originally bought a SolarQuest mount, but I've never gotten it to accurately align with the sun. It seems to work (goes to an altitude, then spins around), but I've not been able to see anything yet.
- That's why I ended up using an HEQ5, which is overkill by a mile, but worked. Eventually. It came with a USB-RJ45 cord that I had troubles getting to work with the Eagle. Every other computer worked out-of-the-box using EQMOD, but I eventually got everything to work using GSServer. Once I was up and running, it worked as I expected, but I was hopping mad about the driver issues there.
- Software. Everybody here has opinions on what software to use, but figuring out something that worked for me was time-consuming.
- Nina is meant for nighttime, not solar. It doesn't have Polaris; it definitely doesn't have the Sun.
- SharpCap and FireCapture look good but don't track.
- Phd2 crashed. I also don't have a guide scope for my guide scope, so I'm not sure how that's supposed to work.
- ASIStudio worked really well while focusing since it has good controls for the camera.
- Stellarium is simply too much for the little computer to run. It has the sun, though! I actually liked this software enough to buy it for my phone.
- I ended up with using Stellarium on my phone to get the coordinates for the Sun, then manually entering them into the GSServer window and setting it for solar tracking. For now, I used the ASIStudio planetary software to capture the images.
This is a rant, I know. I had fun and I can't deny the thrill of actually seeing sunspots, even through the poor focus. I'm legitimately excited to refine my process, though I now know this scope isn't going to work for me. Per another pose on here, I think I'm going to grab this scope.
If anybody has any feedback, please do chime in. Although I've been lurking here for a while, I'll freely admit that there's plenty of collective wisdom and knowledge here that I'm unaware of.
