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solar imaging with daystar quark and z61

William Optics ZenithStar 61 / ZS61 ZWO ASI385MC Solar Filter Help Needed
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Pedro Cabanillas avatar
Pedro Cabanillas avatar
Good evening everyone I need some help, I recently purchased a daystar quark and I am trying to image using a WO ZS61 telescope. I have tries everything and no matter what I cant seem to be able to see anything. I was wondering if anyone using this same setup could explain their stack up when they image.

My current setup 
ZS61 
daystar quark 
ZWO Asi385mc 
 
Anything helps, Thank you.
hughsie avatar
hughsie avatar
Hi Pedro.

I came across this question today and see you have had no response, hopefully you have resolved the issue.

In the beginning I started solar imaging with the Z61 and Quark Chromosphere. My set up was Z61 -> 2 inch diagonal -> Quark -> ASI174mm. I was able to achieve focus with this. It looks like an unstable set up and you need to make sure everything is connected securely and locked down.

The diagonal has an optical path length of c130mm, so if you wanted to replace the diagonal and have a set up that comes straight out of the scop you would need a tube extender of say 80mm length then rack out the focuser to 50 to 60mm. Any combination of tube extender and focus travel of c130mm should get you where you need to be for focusing the Quark.
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Stacey Baczkowski avatar
Stacey Baczkowski avatar
Hi Pedro

I had the same issue the first time I tried a quark - I couldn’t see the sun.  Turns out the sun wasn’t centered in my view.  It wasn’t that easy to find the sun.  I used a Tele Vue sun finder and when the sun was centered  in. my scope, the sun on the Tele Vue was on partially visible and to the right.  Hard to describe while writing, but if you have a Tele Vue or other sun finder, I think you will understand.  You can see the sun through the Quark even while it is heating up.
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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar
I agree. I have had this problem when using a solar scope for the first time. You absolutely won't see anything until the Sun is in the FOV. The best way to get a rough pointing is to adjust the ota so that its shadow on the ground is symmetrical and minimized in size. If you still see nothing you'll have to move the scope around in a search pattern until you see it in the field. At that point you can center it and if you have something like the Televue solar finder, not where the sun sits on the white screen. If you are controlling the mount with something like Green Swamp Server or even a handbox, doing a spiral search will be helpful.

I haven't tried it but if you've parked your scope properly you should be able to unpark and then use SharpCap to go to the Sun's current position. This can be bang on accurate. I know this works well for the Moon and planets.
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