Solar Mosaic 14 August 2011

[Paul Haese]

Not much surface activity today but I was greeted by some nice prominences and a really nice filament.

Click here to see image.

Comments welcome.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

crikey Paul, that is top notch. regards Ray

[leon]

Man, that is so good, don't know how you guys do that stuff, beautiful Paul

Leon

[danielsun]

Wow! incredible Paul!! Just amazing detail!!

[El Paso Eric (Eric)]

Wow, That looks super. If you don't mind my asking, how do you blend your surface and prom data? The blending is seamless, without the typically seen bright ring.

Eric

[iceman (Mike)]

Nice image Paul!

[Star Catcher (Ted Dobosz)]

Nice processing on this one Paul.

[Paul Haese]

Thanks guys.

Eric, that is because I don't blend that data at all. I take the surface and prominence detail together. Then in processing I work the prominences a little harder to bring out the fine detail. Yesterday I tried taking data that was for the prominences and I did not gather any more detail using more gain and more gamma. So at this stage I will be keeping the current technique. When I image I keep the gain around 200 and the gamma at around 9.2 in Lucam recorder. This allows for the prominences and surface detail to be present. Hope that all makes sense.

[DJ N]

Really nice image Paul!

[Peter Ward]

Take away the camera. Pop in your favorite eyepiece.

Look at old Sol. Really look.

Limb darkening? Not much
Gradients across the disk? . Very few.
Local patch variation in luminance? No way.

Nice. But blotchy (sorry...but I figure you can handle it)

[El Paso Eric (Eric)]

Thanks for the information Paul. I'm wondering how much better/easier your process might be, with 12 bit data. It seems that whenever I work on JPG's (or other 8 bit images) in Photoshop, I get only a couple operations before the histogram starts falling apart.

I've never looked through a solar scope, so I can't really comment on Peter's review. But IMO, a little limb darkening gives the image an appearance of a ball instead of a disk.

[Paul Haese]

Originally Posted by El Paso Eric

But IMO, a little limb darkening gives the image an appearance of a ball instead of a disk.

Yeah me too. I like the sun to look like a ball not a disk myself.

No probs Pete. The blend of the mosaic panels was not quite right this time because I had the etalon not set quite right.

[midnight (Darrin)]

That's a very nice image Paul - I spent a lot time looking at it. I haven't started on Sol yet so my experience is very limited and therefore read Peter's comments with interest.

Darrin...

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Another beauty Paul

I like the way your perpendicular edge details aren't just on the edge, the impression is that of a sphere, I like that real 3D look, nice work again.

Mike

[icytailmark (Mark)]

hi paul, How hard is it to make a Solar Mosaic? What do you actually do to make one?

[Paul Haese]

Thanks guys.

Mark it is not as hard as you might think. You image so that you have overlapping detail, most of the time around 3/4 of each panel. Then I process each avi in avistack. Then I layer each panel on a black background in photoshop. When I have each one perfectly aligned with the other panels I highlight all the layers and then click autoblend in the edit menu. I then flatten the whol image. Most of the time is works pretty well, except when I have the original etalon settings not quite even at capture. Colouring is a personal thing really and that is easy enough to do.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Holly cow !!!, missed this, so DMK41 is it then, ill get one of those.

[Paul Haese]

Thanks Fred. Yep it aint fast but it gets the job done. This image is actually about the same size that Peter normally puts up, but I think it is better to resample down when the seeing or there is not much surface detail to display.

I have taken a bit of a look at the primary data to address the blotchy look as Peter pointed out and I cannot do much about it. Half the problem with this scope is there is still some uneven illumination with a slight hot spot. I can alleviate this a bit by using a better setting. I just neglected to make the correct adjustment. With any luck Monday next week will bring some clear sky and a chance to produce an image with less imperfections.

[Poita (Peter)]

Wow, very nice. I see what people mean about the more 'spherical' look.
I understand people saying that visually the sun doesnt look this way, and for a purely documentary photo I guess it should look flat and white.
However I really love this look, it looks more like I'd expect if the sun had a professional portrait photo taken for his portfolio
For my eyes it is more aesthetically pleasing and artistic than a 'straight' shot, but still has plenty of real detail and data to keep my inner nerd happy.

I'm really leaning towards solar observing lately more than planetary, I've seen so many images of the planets and nebulae over the years, that it sometimes feels disappointing, the sun however has been an unknown to me up until recently, and I am enjoying the exploration of it, and it changes so often that there seems to be always something to see.
Now I just will have to get my own scope so that my mate can have his PST back

[El Paso Eric (Eric)]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

I highlight all the layers and then click autoblend in the edit menu.

Are you kiddin' me? Last year, I spent 9 nights shooting an H-alpha 8-panel mosaic of the Orion area. After software registration in Registar, I spent another week hand-blending every inch of the 63 megapixel panel.

Had I known about the auto blend, I would have tried that one first

There's so much to learn in the multiple software packages used in deep sky imaging. Thanks for that tidbit Paul ! I'll be giving that one a try.