Sun with D800E and Nikon 500mm lens

[Adelastro1]

Here is an image from my very first shoot of the sun last Sunday in practice for the transit that I'm after feedback on please. Taken with Nikon D800E, Nikon 500mm AiS f4 (manual focus lens). RAW file processed in PS5. I tried a few shots with a TC-301 2x teleconverter (ie. at 1000mm) but they were a bit soft so will have to work on focus, mount stability and get a remote cable release. Also the images were taken late afternoon so seeing wasn't the best.

This is almost a 100% crop too with lots of detail (albeit it resized to 200kB), so the D800E is doing what I got it for! It produced a 100Mb Tiff file but cropped it's down to a far more manageable 3Mb!

f8, 1/1000sec, ISO 400 @ 500mm with Baader Astrofilm.

Any tips on processing? I'm getting a Baader Continuum filter this week to hopefully produce better results.

Thanks,
Wayne

[Steffen]

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I did the same today (trials for the big day), using a 6" f/12 Mak and a D7000. The result is below. Besides the obvious field-of-view issue I also faked the colour. The shot was taken with a solar continuum (540nm) filter and thus was all green. It probably also lacks sharpness, having been taken at 1/60s and ISO100.

I'm going to try again, this time with an f/7 ED80, to fit the Sun into the frame. I'm hoping the next weekend will be sunny, I need some more practise...

Cheers
Steffen.

[Adelastro1]

That's great Steffen. I'll have to work on my sharpness more I think!

How have you found the continuum filter? And how did you get such an even colour over the whold disk? Mine's brighter in the middle and dark edges.

Wayne

[Octane]

Limb darkening?

H

[Steffen]

You can make it look any way you like, by adjusting the white/black point and curves sliders. I went for a look where the centre isn't blown and the rim doesn't dissolve into the background. I'm a noob at this too, and would love to hear from seasoned solar imagers about what should and shouldn't be done in PP.

Cheers
Steffen.