The little package of bits arrived a few days ago from the lovely people in Hong Kong. I wasted little time in attaching this to that, that to the other, and generally hooking up whatever I could lay hands on. The Tamron and Orestegor lenses can now serve time on the 30D instead of my FD-mount Canons, the old Sigma mirror lens that I nearly sold last year can come back out of its hiding place (and may see light on December's lunar eclipse), and the intervalometer was duly tested... on nothing particularly worthwhile. I waited until today though, to hook the camera up to the Zeiss, helping me to shoot a few sunspots.
The drawback of the APS-C format is that I can't fit the full solar disk in a single exposure. Still, the best of the action was in this part :) If I do want a full disk - as I will at times for both Sun and Moon - I'll need to do a stitch-up; not difficult in itelf, but not ideal in shooting terms.
This was a1/2000 sec exposure, at ISO 100, with a solar filter over the objective. Many exposures were made, but only one was reasonably sharp - the rest were variously affected by wobbly seeing. Here, a spot group is heading for the limb; some bright faculae can also be seen. Below is a detail of the spots. Because of the solar filter, the original image is coloured orange, but for this image I used just the green channel (for best definition) and colourized the image for a more natural tone. It is entirely artificial though.
This was a1/2000 sec exposure, at ISO 100, with a solar filter over the objective. Many exposures were made, but only one was reasonably sharp - the rest were variously affected by wobbly seeing. Here, a spot group is heading for the limb; some bright faculae can also be seen. Below is a detail of the spots. Because of the solar filter, the original image is coloured orange, but for this image I used just the green channel (for best definition) and colourized the image for a more natural tone. It is entirely artificial though.
It became apparent, while testing the interval timer, that the camera battery was past its best. One run last night, shooting time-lapse star trails, petered out after 17 shots. With little hope of a favourable reply, I emailed the retailer to see if the battery was included in the warranty - it was. They will post a replacement, and I can keep the current one, which will be at least be an emergency spare. I suspect though, that for long exposures I might be better off with a mains supply or a larger battery pack. I'll see how I get on with the new battery first.
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