A very active sun

[Paul Haese]

Todays installment of Sol. Make sure to take a good look around. There is a massive prominence on the limb, a huge filament on the solar disk and plenty of active regions.

Click here (http://paulhaese.net/Mosaicsolardisk15November2011.html) for image.

Comments welcome.

[Star Catcher]

Hi Paul

Nice capture of the action. I had someone ring me up at work telling me the great views he was getting! grrrrr.... Thanks for the pic... I now know what I was missing !

Ted

[El Paso Eric]

Wow, the Prom is huge. Nice job!

[naskies]

Beauty! I like the smooth (invisible?) transition between the proms and the solar disk.

[iceman]

Beautiful Paul, nice one.

[Dennis]

This mosaic sure captures and conveys the incredible powerhouse that brings light and life to our lives. Very nicely done.

Cheers

Dennis

[gbeal]

Unbelievable Paul, excellent shot.
One thing I wondered. A white light shot as well, with the rollover style animation, one to the other, so us mere mortals know what we are missing by just having white light?
Gary

[LKD]

Hi Paul,

Great image, how to you colour the image? Also what program do you use for the mosaic.

I have only been video imaging abourt 2 weeks and need to learn alot more.

luke

[erick]

That really is amazing, Paul. And as you say, so much to see in one image! Seems it has been worth the wait through that long minimum?

[casstony]

Sol has been putting on a great show in recent days - we had rain overnight but it's supposed to clear this arvo - can't wait to see the next act.

[Paul Haese]

Thanks all, appreciate the comments. In case anyone is wonder who I get the proms and the disk looking smooth that is because I shoot them all together. On the really bigger proms I use a layer mask technique to overlay and then blend that in to the image, but all the other stuff is shot together with the disk detail. The colouring is done with shadows in the colour balance. That way there is no lines, or abrupt change in appearance. It took me a while how to work this out but the basics of this is that gama remains the same and the disk must be just illuminated to 254 on an 8 bit camera.

Eric, yes it is a good reward for such a long wait through minimum. I think I started this sort of imaging in 2006 and there were times I wondered if the telescope would see such magnificient views as in the last cycle. The next thing I want to see is the massive active regions like in last cycle. however, that might not happen, but with 18 odd months left till maximum is due to peak who knows.




Good idea Gary, I have been trying to decide whether I want a Herschel wedge or use the same filter medium that Dennis does to do this very sort of thing. I will try to make up my mind soon. Thanks.



Luke, to colour I use PS with the photo filter, then use the colour balance function, some saturation and some curves. The combination is a bit hap hazard but I always aim for an orange type of sun, even though it is supposed to be white.

For the mosaic I use PS and join each layer together via the autoblend layers function under the edit tab. There are several programs that do this and I think the one that Peter Ward uses does it best. I cannot recall the name of it at present.

[strongmanmike]

Yeh I like your Sol processing the best Paul (not that the others are bad or anything). Incredible amount of stuff going on there...it looks a tad patchy and slightly blurred in places though but overall, phew, pretty speccy image mate :thumbsup:

Mike

[Paul Haese]

Yeah the blurring and the patchy look is a problem with how the etalon works on this unit. I have found that like the PST there are sweet spots. I have only found the sweet spot once or twice in the last 8 or so months. When I find that again I am going to mark it so I don't lose the spot. I don't think Peter has the same problem with the 90mm, but then again he is not using a dedicated scope and this might well be the problem with dedicated telescopes. Trying to find a setting with even illumination on the front etalon is like looking for a needle in a hay stack.

Some of the blurring is caused from this sweet spot issue but some is from seeing during the 15 minutes it takes to do the mosaic run. Due to the sun slowly changing, I want to capture the data quickly so that nothing changes in the overlap, that means I cannot image when the seeing is good.

I suspect that Peter runs many more mosaic panels with the PME. That way he can get each panel looking right with plenty of detail and no problem with illumination. Perhaps it is time to look at another scope for this job?

[strongmanmike]

I didn't think about the changes on the surface actually, that makes sense!

Only minor comments of course :thumbsup:

Alan Friedmans solar images are pretty good actually

Mike

[John Hothersall]

Glorious image Paul.

John.

[Derek Klepp]

Nice Disc Paul

[Peter Ward]

Nice one Paul :thumbsup:

My typical Solar run is 12 panels with good seeing and 6-9 with average seeing.

Front etalons do not have " sweet spots" as there is no convergence from the source. They do however have multiple reflections which can get close to the primary image without a gross-error check.

[Shiraz]

That is an exceptional image. Regards Ray

[Paul Haese]

Hmmm, so why does the image when in the center of the run have one side detailed and the other side containing a flat less detailed aspect (noticable)? That would indicate a sweet spot. Perhaps this is the interference with the second internal etalon which I cannot move. It is most likely this etalon which contains the sweet spot.

I have seen the reflections before when just viewing, however those are present at either end of the etalon adjustment.