Ha_sun_from Perth - first try.

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Hi Guys,
Looking for constructive feedback! This is my first effort at solar imaging. Scope was a lunt 80mm single stack, camera was a DMK41, software was registax 6 and photoshop.
I set the camera exposure a tad higher than the auto setting, which seemed to do a better job of capturing the proms at the same time. Each image was about 1500 frames, with the best 100 culled for the stack.
I needed two images to get the whole disk in, but I'm not happy with the join - it's as if there's slightly different image quality between the two, even thoguh I was fairly careful to use the same wavelet setup in registax. I took a whole pile of images through a 2.5x powermate, and they seem to come up alright, so once I figure out the joining bit, I'll try a higher res version
cheers,
Andrew.

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Excellent first image!
Well done.
It's easier to do separate exposures for the surface and the proms.
With my DMK21 and DMK41 (on a double stack set-up) I need about 1/125s for the surface and up to 1/11s for the proms - usually 800-1000 frames etc etc
Look forward to seeing your mosaic.

[sheeny (Al)]

I agree with Ken, that's an excellent first image.

I see what you mean about the mosaic join. To do this well you must do everything exactly the same for each stack of the mosaic - they will after all end up the same image.

I make no adjustments what so ever between captures for a mosaic, and I minimise time between captures so surface features and seeing don't change too much. Even if you do everything perfectly, sometimes a seeing change will ruins things...

What combine method did you use in PS to make the mosaic? I use "reposition only" since my scope is nice and flat.

My personal preference is to image proms and the disc separately, but if you have a look at my full disc images you will see proms usually feature reasonably well. I do this by manipulating the curves layer so they are still part of the image rather than looking like they are stuck on around the outside. Of course, there's nothing wrong with doing a full HDR process, but I'm tend to do it the easy way. When you get a prom that crosses the face as a filament, it can be really spoilt usign a masking technique... curves or HDR is much better.

I'm not sure what processing you do in registax, but I'll offer my process here for comparson what its worth...:

1. Capture = 600 frames.
2. Multiple alignment points (5 to 9) on key features (128 pixel box usually, but you can mix and match to suit) on a sharpish frame.
3. Create a Reference Frame from the best 10.
4. Apply a wavelet scheme and "Do All". I have several wavelet schemes saved for different scope setups and seeing conditions - this makes it easy to get the wavelets the same on each stack of a mosaic.
5. Optimise and then in the stack tab I always select the best frames for stacking using the "stack graph". Drag the quality line on the top stack graph left until the quality graph is pretty flat or there's about 150 to 250 frames left. Then for each alignment point, drag the difference line down until there's about 100 frames for each alignment point left.
6. Stack and save, and apply wavelets and save (different filename - I usually add a "w" on the end).

Al.

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

thanks for the positive comments - my registax workflow is a lot more primitive, so I'll do some more experimenting. I found the auto-merge layers in photoshop and that improved things significantly.
I've got the batch processing menu in registax mroe or less figured out, so I'll have to get the kids to do the grunt work on the mosaic...
regards,
Andrew,