Full disk mosaic 10 May 2012

[Paul Haese]

Part of my preparations for the Venus transit. My etalon setting is not quite right with some patchy spots, but still reasonably happy with this image.

Click here for image (warning 1.3mb)

Quite large image with lots of interesting things to look at including some nice prominences.

Feel free to critique or comment.

[iceman (Mike)]

Very nice Paul, looks like you're all set for the transit.
It's going to be one very well recorded event!

[Quark (Trevor)]

Very nice work Paul, will look great with the Venus Transit.

Regards
Trevor

[Poita (Peter)]

Looking good Paul, I'm thinking about getting a DMK41 as well, the 21 means a lot of images to get a mosaic happening.

[Troy]

Nice image Paul

[bartman (Bart)]

Wicked Paul !
fingers crossed the clou.....oops shouldn't jinx it I guess.....
Cheers
Bartman

[Rigel003 (Graeme)]

Beautiful detail across the disk. Very dramatic.

[Paul Haese]

Thanks all,

Yes hoping that the day will be a good one to capture this event.\

Peter there is a loss of frame rate but you only need 800 or so frames in average to good seeing. AVI stack is a great tool for this sort of panel size.

[Poita (Peter)]

I didn't realise so few frames were needed, it may explain why I have so much trouble stacking solar images

I've been looking for a suitable camera to get the wider FOV, I was hoping something newer than the venerable DMK41 may have come along by now.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Real nice. Looking forward to your transit shots.

[Paul Haese]

Thanks Marc.

Peter, a high speed and more sensitive replacement to the DMK would be nice.

[Exfso (Peter)]

That is a beautiful shot of our star..

[Martin Pugh]

Fantastic Paul.

What scope and camera is this?

cheers
Martin

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Beautiful image Paul, and it's so huge! Really impressive. You must be looking forward to the transit now, seems you're more than ready

[Paul Haese]

Thanks guys,

Martin this is a solarmax 60 0.5 A scope with DMK41. Details below the image.

Rolf, this image is reduced to 60%, so you can imagine how large this image really is? I reduce it to this size so that people can get more of a overall look.

[Dennis]

A superb image Paul, I’m looking forward to seeing this plus the silhouette of Venus as she slowly flits across the solar disc. I hope that you get clear skies and attempt the full disc mosaic; I think it will look absolutely stunning.

Cheers

Dennis

[Martin Pugh]

Thanks Paul - I didnt spot the detail.

Been practicing today - What I was hoping to achieve was to visually get the object of interest as bright and contrasty as possible, then drop the camera in, adjust gain/exposure values and away I go. That is not the case. Do you first tune the etalons visually and then put the camera in, or do you do the tuning while the camera is in place?

cheers
Martin

[Paul Haese]

Thanks guys for the comments.

Martin, because I have the 60mm solarmax I have to watch out for flat spots in the image detail. So what I do is put the camera in focus and then adjust the etalon to get the best looking field with an even illumination. It takes a little practice but it does not take long to work out what looks best.

Using a darkened box with a towel over your head helps to see the fine changes in tone of the image.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

excellent result Paul - I guess a lot of effort goes into a fine image like this. Regards Ray

[LAW (Murphy)]

That's unreal Paul!
Thoroughly enjoyed your videos with Brady too