Planet sized UFO drinking from the SUN...

[Mark Toia]

I have a 8 inche Celstron Shimit Casagran telescope (equal to a 3500mm lens) that I'm wanting to convert to be able to put my EPIC camera on it.
In my research of SUN filters, I found this very werid SUN UFO you tube video...

There is some crazy stuff going on out there.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-Star-captured-video-refuels-surface-sun.html

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

NASA Explanation here ... a common phenomenon known as a Coronal Cavity

but thanks for posting ... I love this stuff... but again 99% is usually explainable phenomena

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

Cool thread.

 

[Dominik Muench]

dont most of the bigger brands take Canon and Nikon DSLR lens mounts you can attach ?

I spoke to the guys at Staroptics on the coast a while ago and they were selling them for all their Meade telescopes....once you have a canon mount on that baby....BAM....can shoot topless brazilian girls from the comfort of your home across the ocean ^^

 

[Michael AvMen]

coronal mass ejection. Very Cool..

 

[Michael Hardwick]

I have a Meade 8" LX200 Classic Schmidt Cassegrain - very similar to yours in design. 2000mm F10, or 1750mm F6.3 with a focal reducer.

Have attached a Canon mounted Epic using Televue T rings and 2.5" Powermate.

Good results of bright solar system objects, moon, Saturn, Jupiter - but the lack of long exposure capabilities really limit what you can do. Images stack nicely using
Registax for planetary images -

Had fun imaging the recent Venus transit of the sun using a Baader Planetarium solar filter that slipped over the front of the corrector plate.

Biggest problem was balancing the added weight of the Epic to the fork mounted OTA on an equatorial wedge- required some creative use of counter weights, and never really got the thing dialed in. Polar alignment was pretty sloppy and sidereal tracking was all f'd up. A real heavy duty German Equatorial Mount like a Losmandy G11 may be better suited for Epic astronomy adventures. My rig was just to heavy for the fork mount.

Much better results with my Nikon as an astrophotography imager, and even eyeballing dedicated CCD imagers for this hobby. SBIG makes great stuff

Watch out guys, astronomy and astrophotography is every bit as addictive as cinematography - steep learning curve, lots of amazing expensive tools, lots of WOW moments.


If all you are after is using the telescope as a big honking telephoto for terrestrial use, you may need to invest in an erect image prism, or wait for firmware 4.0 with the image flip function built in. But yeah it works great if you can smoothly execute micro moves for pan and tilt.

 

[Mark Toia]

Thanks for that guys ! Im going to buy this EO mount..

 

[Mark Toia]

NASA Explanation here ... a common phenomenon known as a Coronal Cavity

but thanks for posting ... I love this stuff... but again 99% is usually explainable phenomena

AWESOME !!!!!

 

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

Planet sized UFO drinking from the Sun might be a great idea for Nicolas Cage movie. I loved Knowing.

 

[Percy_M]

I have a Meade 8" LX200 Classic Schmidt Cassegrain - very similar to yours in design. 2000mm F10, or 1750mm F6.3 with a focal reducer.

Have attached a Canon mounted Epic using Televue T rings and 2.5" Powermate.

Good results of bright solar system objects, moon, Saturn, Jupiter - but the lack of long exposure capabilities really limit what you can do. Images stack nicely using
Registax for planetary images -

Had fun imaging the recent Venus transit of the sun using a Baader Planetarium solar filter that slipped over the front of the corrector plate.

Biggest problem was balancing the added weight of the Epic to the fork mounted OTA on an equatorial wedge- required some creative use of counter weights, and never really got the thing dialed in. Polar alignment was pretty sloppy and sidereal tracking was all f'd up. A real heavy duty German Equatorial Mount like a Losmandy G11 may be better suited for Epic astronomy adventures. My rig was just to heavy for the fork mount.

Much better results with my Nikon as an astrophotography imager, and even eyeballing dedicated CCD imagers for this hobby. SBIG makes great stuff

Watch out guys, astronomy and astrophotography is every bit as addictive as cinematography - steep learning curve, lots of amazing expensive tools, lots of WOW moments.


If all you are after is using the telescope as a big honking telephoto for terrestrial use, you may need to invest in an erect image prism, or wait for firmware 4.0 with the image flip function built in. But yeah it works great if you can smoothly execute micro moves for pan and tilt.

You're better off without the prism if you want to hook it directly onto the camera. Even the best Baader prisms will rob the image of detail. But if you're doing some terrestrial viewing, then a prism is the way to go. Otherwise it will look like gravity isn't working. Now for the weight capacity, you're much better off with a dedicated german equatorial mount. Astro Physics Mach 1, Takahashi EM200, semi heavy duty. AP M1 is good for 45 pounds of loadout and is solid.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

I'm fascinated of the Universe as a child on a candy store, were at the same time as I discover more and more, (I know a great deal of it, more particularly research on Dark Matter and Dark Energy), it frightens the crap out of me...

 

[Michael McLaughlin]

Wellll with seemingly nailing down the first parts of the Higgs boson/higgs field and its interaction as a mechanism on many of the particles in the Standard Model; things indeed will get at lot more interesting.

Now knowing where the Higgs or "God particle" sits in the electon volt (?) energy range... I assume will allow us to tighten up our maths, machines etc. to a ridiculously tighter tolerances and allow us to maybe finally get a one equation all encompassing math statement like E=MC 2 famously stated by the Italian Olinto De Pretto and then refined and expanded by Einstein.

The Higgs will definitely lead us into to some very weird science.