[1ponders]
12-11-2006, 03:40 PM
Never one to waste a good opportunity, with no cloud and bright sunshine I thought I'd trial a couple of different eyepieces for Eyepiece projection.
The first three shots are through a UO 12.5mm ortho (thanks Rob C., its a ripper), the second two are through a Vixen LV 15mm. All taken through the Orion ED80 with a ToUcam. The only processing has been waveletting to preference and slight gamma adjustment. Apart from the frames, text and saving for the web in PS there has been no other adjustment.
One thing I noticed when capturing, particularly with the UO, if I played around with the saturation I managed to get quite a good colour gradient that "seems" to follow the sunspot temperature gradient. Don't know if it's wishful thinking but I like it. You will see this clearly in the second shot. Apart from that one shot all other shots have only been adjusted in exposure and gain. It's surprising the different results from the two eyepieces.
There were brief moments of excellent seeing so I captured a number of large avies (1000-1500 frames) at the same settings, converted them to bmps and then processed all the bmps together for a setting. The largest group was 4700 bmps. From these I selected only 100-300 frames for final stacking, depending on the quality of the frames.
Enjoy :)
ps. the longest FL I managed with the Orion was a whooping 5.1 meters, that's nearly the equivalent of using an 8.5X barlow. :eyepop: And still it was performing like a dream. If I ever had any doubts about this little scope, this mornings session has blown them away.
The first three shots are through a UO 12.5mm ortho (thanks Rob C., its a ripper), the second two are through a Vixen LV 15mm. All taken through the Orion ED80 with a ToUcam. The only processing has been waveletting to preference and slight gamma adjustment. Apart from the frames, text and saving for the web in PS there has been no other adjustment.
One thing I noticed when capturing, particularly with the UO, if I played around with the saturation I managed to get quite a good colour gradient that "seems" to follow the sunspot temperature gradient. Don't know if it's wishful thinking but I like it. You will see this clearly in the second shot. Apart from that one shot all other shots have only been adjusted in exposure and gain. It's surprising the different results from the two eyepieces.
There were brief moments of excellent seeing so I captured a number of large avies (1000-1500 frames) at the same settings, converted them to bmps and then processed all the bmps together for a setting. The largest group was 4700 bmps. From these I selected only 100-300 frames for final stacking, depending on the quality of the frames.
Enjoy :)
ps. the longest FL I managed with the Orion was a whooping 5.1 meters, that's nearly the equivalent of using an 8.5X barlow. :eyepop: And still it was performing like a dream. If I ever had any doubts about this little scope, this mornings session has blown them away.