Comming to grips with SOL - Jan 25

[TechnoBill]

Hi All,
I am a newcomer to Solar Imaging and am still at the “how to do things “ stage but I am slowly coming to grips with it all.
I have attached two images that use two different cameras, the first is a single shot of the full disk using the QHY8 colour camera. I purposely overexposed it just to see how much detail I could get of both the prominences and of surface detail. This is a 50% reduction to keep the size down.
The second one was shot with the DMK 41. I am still coming to grips with the processing part and seeing was not particularly good. It’s a shot of the active region 11041 stacked from the best of 200 frames using aviStack and tweaked and colour added through Paint Shop Pro.
The scope is a Lunt LS60THa/DS.
Regards
Bill D
www.billd.net

[Dennis]

Hi Bill

A couple of excellent images - nice work. The prominences in the 1st image look awesome!

Cheers

Dennis

[TechnoBill]

Thanks Dennis,
I still have a long way to go towards getting high quality stuff going, but I am reallty enjoying working with sol.
Unlike Deep Space, with solar you can collect all the data you need relatively quickly and then just spend the next few days processing.

Regards
Bill D

[iceman]

Really nice Bill. I also love the first one.

Can you do two exposures - one for the disc and one for the prominences, and combine them?

[TechnoBill]

Thanks Iceman,
In regards to combining them, I need to work on my processing skills, in this case blending with photoshop. I do have other images at different exposures taken at the same time, but I could not work out how to blend them nicely. I always ended up with a hard edge around the outside of the disk which I did not like. I need to work out how to get it to feather the overlay.
Also With the colour camera I am not sure there was any more disk detail. The only advantage of combining them with this camera would be to get rid of the RED outline that runs around the disk. As seen in that current image.

Interestingly enough the colour in this photo is due to a side effect of overexposure and the light leaking into the green and blue chanels on the CCD. When correctly exposed, the image is all red as HA should be. But when overexposed, light leaks through the filters on the CCD into the green and blue chanels, these are what added the colour to the disk. Technically it should all be as red as the solar extremities.
Bill D

[Matt Wastell]

Hi Bill
Great stuff - you have got some good details there! The Sun is great for lots of AVI's in a short time - you can usually get a goodish image due to the volume you can capture.
I am glad you are enjoying our star!
I look forward to much more of your stuff!

[rat156]

Looking good Billy,

This sort of stuff just takes practice, practice, practice.

Oh good seeing helps as well, but unless you know what bad seeing is, you won't know when it's good and so to persevere.

Cheers
Stuart

[TechnoBill]

Thanks Guys,

In regards to seeing, it always seems to be bad here in Geelong being so close to the bay to the east and the ocean to the south there always seems to be moisture in the air. But I do rmemeber when photographing the moon there were times when it didnt "swim" (I think it was late autum) so its just a matter of catching mother nature at the right time.

Bill D

[SMan]

Great work Bill :thumbsup:

[Quark]

Well done Bill,

There are some very skilled solar imagers that post here and I am sure they will be able to be of assistance.

Regards
Trevor