August 4 Sun and first light for LS60F

[sheeny]

Today was first light for my new LS60F Ha filter. Not ideal conditions, these were all captured in between the clouds scudding through on the cold westerly, but I couldn't wait. Seeing was atrocious - I didn't even bother with the C11 for any white light shots.

:)

Al.

[Dennis]

Hi Al

Cold down there too huh! The 1st full-disk image is excellent and the detailed limb pair of the prominence is quite mesmerising.

Cheers

Dennis

[sheeny]

Thanks Dennis.

Al.

[Paul Haese]

Nice work Al. I reckon you could work the curves a little more on the full disk. I really like the detail you get with the setup you have.

[gbeal]

Some lovely images Al, especially the full disk shot, stunning.
Gary

[h0ughy]

yeah a saw the clouds come over from you.....its an interesting feature, nice one. i had an odd angry shot at this as well - at about an hour after you did

[Matt Wastell]

Glad you goy out with the new weapon! Looking forward to more!

[sheeny]

Thanks guys.


What'd you have in mind for the curves, Paul? More contrast on the disk? Brighter proms? I usually end up with a double hump curve to try to get as much contrast into the disk as well as bring up the proms. Its a trade off, but I prefer a seamless transition from disk to proms so any filaments that cross the limb (filaproms?) don't look disjointed.

Al.

[Derek Klepp]

Nice upgrade Al .Now you can double stack it with the 40 to get a great contrasty disc.

[sheeny]

Here's a few repros... I decided to have a play after Dave's HDRToning adventure - I've never used it before so thought I'd experiment.:)

1. Standard disc, just a little extra sharpening, but save to web dropped quality significantly.
2. Same as above but smaller size to reduce the impact of the save to web degradation... not sure its worth it:shrug:.
3. HDR Toning experiment.

Al.

[Derek Klepp]

Al if you could get the Brightness in the last one in the first two which seem to show more detail.Mind you I couldn't produce a disc if I had too.PS If you get a chance check out that Filament.

[Paul Haese]

Al use the medium setting under the auto functions in PS (in curves). That will boost you images. Use this to taste. Sometimes 2 lots is needed. To preserve the proms use a mask.

Filaproms generally are more enhanced by using this method. I have several examples on my site in the solar activity setting for you perusal.

[Peter Ward]

Ditto on Paul's comments re:curves....but well processed just the same you've captured a smooth transition from bright to dark, rather than a "posterised" look.

The solar hemisphere facing us has a very uniform flux...which is centered in the middle of the sphere and rolls off at the edges...plus whatever (smaller scale) action the sun shows on the day.

All too often I see images with off-centre "hot spots" that are artifacts of etalon tuning rather than what the sun is really doing

Nice one :thumbsup:

[sheeny]

Here's my take on the curves and mask.

Al.

[h0ughy]

very nice repros Al

[sheeny]

Thanks Dave.

Al.

[nandopg]

Hi Al,
Great full disc images, despite the bad seeing! The last one you did is really good.

To bring out the proms using a single image or a mosaic, I always used Shadows/Highlights under Image -> Adjust menu.

To start, you should make a copy of your image to be enhanced in a new layer. Then apply S/H. You will see the proms standing out, but the solar disc will suffer. To fix this, see below:
1- Create a layer mask and press CTRL+I to inverte the mask, creating a "Block All" type of mask.
2- Paint on the edges of the solar disc with the Brush Tool, choosing a diameter of the tool compatible with the image scale. You should also have White selected as the foreground color.
3- Ajust the Layer Opacity to 70 to 80%. The proms will be back through the hole opened on the Layer Mask.
4- Select Filter-> Blur -> Gaussian Blur and choose a Radius of 40 to 60 pixels.
5- If necessary reduce a bit more the Layer opacity to have a more enven match between the solar disc and the limb+proms.

With those simple steps you can enhance your proms, reduce the limb darkening effect and keep the contrast of your solar disc.

I hope my humble contribution helps you somehow.

Best Regards,

Fernando

[sheeny]

Thanks Fernando. I'm a big fan of S&H for high contrast shots... I hadn't thought of using it the other way - to stretch the contrast. I will have to have a play:thumbsup:.

Al.

[sheeny]

Yep, another repro!

This started off as an experiment using Shadows and Highlights, but I have digressed a bit from Fernando's procedure.

I started with applying wavelets in Avistack (since I usually use registax, so thought I'd see if they're any different). Applied S&H to a duplicate layer. Curves are a different shape but essentially doing the same as I usually do. Colourised using Hue and saturation rather than my usual levels and applied a little bit of selective colour:
a touch of blue to the whites (to make them look whiter);
a touch of red to neutrals;
a touch of black to yellows (so its not so sickly);
a touch of blue to the blacks (colour contrast as well as tone contrast for some kick).

Still didn't get a result I felt was worthy of masking, so I'll have to work on producing 2 very different layers for masking to work I think.

Al.

PS. I think I like my layers colourising better even though this method highlights the plague better.

[sheeny]

And another couple. I think I followed Fernando's procedure pretty well this time. Two variations on colourisation: Layers and Hue & Sat.:)

Al.

[Derek Klepp]

I like the first one better but the proms do stand out better in the second.

[sheeny]

Yeah, I think there's something appealing about rich colours.;)

Al.