A "better" Sun image thanks to notes taken, Jan 18, 2022

[Thefatkitty]

Hello again fellow solar-heads, et al.

Haven't seen much of the Sun lately, and when I do it's very cold but clear. On Jan 16th (Sunday) I finally got some nice pics of the Sun in just such a day. Yet, when I processed them in PIPP, AS3, ImPPG and PS, they seemed so dull. Not the usual detail, and why did I have to increase the brightness on the image in Photoshop to see any detail? I've never had to do that in 6+ years of imaging the Sun in white-light.

However, in November of last year I switched over to Linux, and wondered if this had something to do with it, especially as there is no Linux version of PIPP and AS3. Those two and certain other Windows programs will work, but that's another story. And everything else I run software-wise works great. So what's going on?

Yesterday was a day off, and I got in some more pics of the Sun. It was another clear cold day, as it usually is after a major snowfall. I processed them, and same results as the 16th. OK, this is getting almost annoying...

Then I had a light bulb moment

When I first started taking pics with my DSLR of the Sun/Moon, I saved the typical settings that I use in PIPP, which I also keep on a backup drive. I copied those over for the Linux install, so no problem there. After that I use AS3, which has no settings you can import. So I took notes on a piece of paper for what worked. The most variable and noticeable settings (for me anyways) in AS3 were two checkboxes; Normalize Stack and Sharpened, both of which I tick.

However, in Linux when I set it up, I never changed it from it's default "ticked" numerical settings, which was 35% for Normalize and 15% for Sharpened - Blend RAW.

I dug through my desk drawers and found these old notes I had taken down from years ago. It turns out for the Sun, I had 85% for Normalize and 35% for Sharpened - Blend RAW. So I tried that.

What a difference! My settings in ImPPG now worked with what I had the way I expected them too as well. That was also another head scratcher before... Blame the middleman; in this case me and my lack of paying attention!

The moral of my story? It pays to take notes


So this is a "thumbnail" comparison; the Sun I processed on the 16th with the default AS3 settings is on the left, with yesterdays Sun on the right with the above corrected AS3 parameters:

And yesterday's Sun in full:

Full size image here



The annotations for the spots:

I was very happy with all this and that it wasn't an OS issue. I quite like this version of Linux; it so far works very well with all the software I use, especially with my older hardware... And no more waiting for updates!

Have a good night/day, take notes, and all the best,

[Lady Fraktor]

Glad you figured out the issue Mark.

[Butterfly Maiden]

Well worked out Mark :smile:

[avid.astronomer]

Congratulations on finding the right settings. I've never had very good results with AS!3 and solar photos. I'll try your settings next time and see what it comes up with.

[messier 111]

I took note of it.
nice disc, thx.

[Michael131313]

Yes, I agree. Note taking is important. Thanks for sharing your experience.