Coronado PST Images
Well I went out and purchased a Coronado PST from ScopesNSkies the other week and was itching to try it out, but it seems since I have bought it, it’s now cloudy every day – typical! I did get to put it on my NEQ6 mount and do some imaging one Sunday morning though.
I used my Televue Powermate 2.5x with my DMK21 camera for these shots. The video was stacked using Registax 6.
These images show the Sun in Hydrogen Alpha or Ha. I think for the price of the scope it does not do a bad job. This a basic entry level version of the Coronado PST which can be purchased for just over £450 new.
I was not so happy with the first image, I took two images for this shot and then layered them in Photoshop, but to me they still look a bit fake, perhaps because I added the false colour first to each and then layered them, next time I will layer them first and then flatten the image and add the false colour.
But overall I am quite happy with my first efforts, I have also subsequently learnt how to take flats against the Sun, so I need to subtract the flats next time to remove the dust bunnies. Then I just need more Sun and more free time!
Nice images. Like you I have also recently started imaging the sun using a PST. With respect to colourising the image I found a technique by Jan Timmermans works very well. You can find it described on the website at http://www.thefirmament.nl/astro/sun_ha_tutorial.html