White Light Sun 2011-07-28

[lepton3]

Got a chance to look at the Sun at lunch time today.

The image was taken with a Canon 400D through a 150mm SCT at f/6.3 with Baader solar film filter. I stacked 20 jpegs with Registax 6 and adjusted the curves and hue and scaled down to reasonable internet size with Gimp.

By the way, has anyone else found Registax 6 is a massive improvement over R5 for these large images? So much faster, and handles so many alignment points with ease.

-Ivan

98151

[asimov]

A very pleasing image! Yes Ivan, registax 6 is so much better.

[Ray?]

Just a quick question. I understand what image stacking is about (especially in macro/micro photography), but what benefit do you get from stacking, when shooting the sun?

Cheers

Ray

[lepton3]

Stacking has two major benefits.



Firstly, you can reduce random noise/distortions (noise averages out, while detail constructively accumulates), and
you can reduce quantisation, which means you can apply more contrast enhancement without getting image artifacts.


This was just 20 images, but look at some of the web cam images in this forum to see how powerful the technique is when you stack thousands of frames.

-Ivan

[Ray?]

Thanks, another thing to try out which I never considered.

Cheers

Ray

[Matt Wastell]

Great pic Ivan - the Sun never really disappoints!

[lepton3]

Thanks John and Matt. Glad you liked it.

Yes, the sun is starting to get interesting, I'm almost tempted to look at getting a H alpha scope.

It was very pleasant out there at lunch time. My lovely wife even brought my lunch out for me while I was observing!

-Ivan.

[Derek Klepp]

Nice shot Ivan