Virgin Solar Pic Nov-5 2011 - AR1339

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Howdy!

Had a blast today making up a canister top solar film holder to go over my 50mm aperture mask on the scope's front end, which allowed me to look at the sun like never before.....wooot!

Grabbed the webcam and TRIED to get all the dust bunnies off the CCD but to no avail.....tips welcome as the windex and the Q tips aint cutting it.

Anyhoo, with processing put to the side (as I have no clue), here is my first solar pic!

AR1339 is a HUUUGE area, apparently (from Spaceweather >>) each of the primary dark cores is about the size of Earth, and the entire group sprawls more than 100,000 km from end to end. The sunspot is so big, it's starting to attact the attention of people looking into the sunset.

So, I hope you like my efforts, I've oranged it up a bit during the capture process as it seemed somehow abnormal to look at the white light shown by the Baader Solar film.

I still cant believe how big the sun looks via the webcam, can only get about 1/8th of the disk in the pic.

Thanks for dropping by and checking it out.

Cheers

Chris

[astronobob (Bob)]

Not too shabby Chris, I like the details around 1339 areas you have captured. I had a quick go Thurs with SLR prime focus but with not great success due to cloud/breezes !
The reason for such a magnified view you have is due to web cams only have a very small chip in which only a small part of the suns image will fall on it ? Great result !
I am also wondering if this was a single capture or whether you stacked a bunch of subs/avi's some way or another ? ?
Cheers !

[astroron (Ron)]

Like it Chris, you have given me a reason to get the Solar Filter out and get the 8" into gear and have a look at our nearest star again through the scope for the first time in a while
Cheers

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Originally Posted by astronobob

Not too shabby Chris, I like the details around 1339 areas you have captured. I had a quick go Thurs with SLR prime focus but with not great success due to cloud/breezes !
The reason for such a magnified view you have is due to web cams only have a very small chip in which only a small part of the suns image will fall on it ? Great result !
I am also wondering if this was a single capture or whether you stacked a bunch of subs/avi's some way or another ? ?
Cheers !

Ah yeah, sorry Bob, I have been out of it for so long I forgot to list the details. 498 frames used from a 30 sec avi capture at 30fps in K3ccdtools, processed in Registax 6 (love the new version - so easy), processed in Astra Image Pro with LR deconvolution & curves (slightly). There was a LOT of heat haze (funny that eh?) so it was jumping around a bit, Registax nailed it though.....now all I have to do is shoot all the dust bunnies who have taken up residence on my ccd chip....grrrrr.

Originally Posted by astroron

Like it Chris, you have given me a reason to get the Solar Filter out and get the 8" into gear and have a look at our nearest star again through the scope for the first time in a while
Cheers

Glad I could help Ron, only 23 more hours of community service left after that recommendation.....

Cheers

Chris