Scope Diagram Astrocamera.Net - Astrophotography by Dave Kodama

Solar Activity + Bonus UFO
4 Aug. 2023



Click on the image above to see the animation on YouTube.
Watch the animation at maximum resolution, full-screen for best detail.
In the desktop version of YouTube, you can right-click on the video to loop it continuously.

This is a project I'm not likely to repeat often, at least until technology advances substantially. This 8-hour timelapse resulted in about 1.4TB of data. See the details of the project below.

The animation runs from 10:09am to 6:24pm, basically starting when the common coastal marine layer around here burned off. Compared to my previous run, I saved data directly to an external hard disk drive at a higher timelapse rate, for a longer run (over 8 hours).

Rotation of the sun's disk is due to the fact that my equatorial mount is not accurately polar aligned. I just depended on my Hinode Solar Guider to keep the sun in view. Edge artifacts are left over from realignment of individual frames for stacking (5% of frames out of bursts of 1000 frames used).

A bonus was an Unidentified Flying/Floating Object (UFO) captured during one of the timelapse frame bursts. Although I can't absolutely identify the object, I'm guessing that it is a balloon. I'm within balloon range of Knott's Berry Farm as well as Disneyland. Also, I heard that a STEM summer camp activity was being held at USC, which is also within balloon range.


Click on the image above to see the animation on YouTube.
Watch the animation at maximum resolution, full-screen for best detail.
In the desktop version of YouTube, you can right-click on the video to loop it continuously.


 
Photo info:

  • Date/Time: 4 Aug 2023 ~1030-1830 PDT
  • Location: Cerritos, CA
  • Camera: Player One Saturn-M (IMX533)
  • Exposure: 50 x 10 msec. (each frame)
  • Lens/Scope: Borg 50
  • Filter: Quark H-alpha + Player One ERF
  • Mount: Losmandy GM8
  • Guiding: Hinode solar guider
  • Image Processing: Autostakkert / IMPPG / Photoshop / Lightroom


 

 

I'm not likely to repeat this project in the near future due to the logistics!


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