I was out from 1100 to 1300 today to image two major sunspot groups and Venus.

The temperature ranged from 27 degrees to 33 degrees, there was an occasional slight breeze, and I had to interrupt my session twice for passing cloud banks, but the sky was otherwise crystal clear. The seeing was poor.

The NP101/GM11 were already set up. I added the ASI178MC along with the filter wheel, 2.5x PowerMate, and flip mirror. Everything worked as it should, and I was able to work without fumbling around much at all. I did have some difficulty getting Venus onto the sensor.

I ran two 1,000 frame L captures on the Sun, one each of AR2960 and AR2965 at 5ms exposure and gain = 35.

I ran three 120s long captures on Venus. The first was L at 1.4ms and gain = 80. The second was IR at 4.5ms and gain = 374, and the third was UV at 29ms and gain = 405. I am amazed at how much the IR and UV filters knock down the light. My intention is to process IR and UV captures with IR mapped to red, 50/50 UV/IR mapped to green, and UV mapped to blue.

The camera remains on the scope so that I can image the moon tonight, weather permitting.