Solar Imaging Session - January 31, 2017

The sky this morning is partly clear but seeing condition is still not good :( AR2629 Sunspot Group shows some mild activity inside its core while AR2630 Sunspot Group , despite its pore like structure, shows bright flaring inside its core. There is also another new AR2631 Sunspot Group coming out of the eastern limb but unfortunately, I got clouded out before3 I could capture it :( There is also a nice group of eruptive prominence visible in the NW limb. Also for this session, I retilted my T2 Tilt Adapter for my ASI120MM webcam and Quark Chromosphere configuration so the Newton Rings are gone for good. I also made a flat frame to eliminate the dust motes that seems to be stubborn on my ASI120MM webcam sensor! I'm having a hard time removing the dust motes despite several attempts so the flat frame did help a bit to clean my image. The 60mm really is having a hard time giving justice to the Quark Chromosphere as its juicing out its limited resolution. I hope to be able to get some better resolution when I can do some solar work with the TV-101 refractor at the roof deck at the new place instead of my current window imaging. Also all my scopes had been transferred so I'm left with the portable 60mm to image as well as a lightweight nexstar mount :( Also noted that I had a hard time getting contrast on my AVIs this session. I suspect I had a light leak in the tilt adapter. Need to cover the tilted plate spacing with more layers of electrical tape to prevent light leak I hope. True enough, I found the culprit for my low contrast matter. The black electric tape I wrap around the tilt adapter spacing is not thick so the CCD sensitivity picks up light leaks from it so I circle the tilt adapter more than 5x along the tilt open space and solves it. Now for crucial test again tomorrow. Sigh! The life of an astro imager :) LOL