Tuning a Quark for Solar Viewing.

I have now had my Chromosphere Quark for a few months now and felt that I had more or less “tamed” it.
What do I mean by this?
Well, the Quark is a filter that allows you to see the Suns Chromosphere in Hydrogen Alpha light.

Click here to read my previous page on my initial Quark experience.

The filter waveband transmitted by the Quark is achieved by turning a knob on the side of it.
Once the tuner setting is selected, the Quark heats the etalon inside until it reaches an assigned temperature.
Once settled it is deemed on-band and the orange light goes green.
This indicates the Quark is now ready for use.
It can take up to 10 minutes for the Quark to be ready each time an adjustment is made.
You need to experiment with settings until you get the best view.

I felt that I had “tamed” my Quark and knew the best settings to use for my viewing and imaging.

As I had a bit of time and a sunny sky,I thought I would take a series of images to see what a difference some of the settings made.

The first image was made using the setting I thought were optimum, two notches up from extreme left:

Turning the dial a couple of notches right the way over to the left gives a slightly different view.
There is a little bit more contrast and the field lines around the active areas are a bit more evident.

Turning the dial halfway round then gives this view:
It is now starting to look very different from the previous images and a lot of the definition is now lost.

Turning the dial right the way round to the right gives the last image.
Newton’s rings are starting to get very prominent (despite using a tilt adapter for all the images).
Most of the magnetic field detail has now disappeared.
The view is completely different and not very photogenic at all.

It looks like the best tuner position to use with this particular Quark is close to where I had it, in a position almost right the way over to the left-hand side.

If you have a Quark, your settings will probably be different to this, as all etalons vary in how they perform.

I would be interested to hear some of your experiences with Quarks, so if you have one, let me know how you get on with yours.