SOLARHEADS - SEPTEMBER Chat Group

[Cliff]

While people are introducing themselves, I'm an Aussie 63yrs young worked as a Avionic/Radio tech for an international airline, lastly on the anti collision system.

My interest in the Sun is also from my other hobby of Ham Radio. Propagation on Shortwave can really be affected by the Solar activity.

Astronomy was always an interest (had a simple Tasco when i was a kid) but late 2019 bought a used 6"ACF Meade SCT (real telescope) luck would have it ,came with a homemade Baader white light filter. Enjoyed the Astro journey with deep space and wide field as well with camera. Only recently bought a Combo Quark and 4X Powermate having had a PST for a short while. Major leap in image quality if only my processing was as good
John has been giving me some tips and thanks Fraz for giving me " Image for August" I feel honoured.

Now if only the weather would co-operate, I know I just fitted a pegasus focuser to the Tak I use for Ha.

[Cliff]

When i got my Combo Quark it came with a Offset filter for a 8"SCT but I only have a Vixen VMC200L totally different to a SCT
Any way I tried it sought of worked though result was not as good as i get in white light , Proms were really faint. Sun spots lacked detail.

Probably the 2deg offset angle adapter for the Quark is not right, I thought maybe a tilt adjuster might help ?

Any here's my best result 8th Sep 2021 back to refractors i think.

Cliff

[FRAZ]

Cliff, you are punching already but I am more interested in your knowledge of systems and ability to break it down. Give it to us, we are sponges waiting.

[FRAZ]

So lets talk about solar systems we use so that we are all on the same page.

https://www.solarmonitor.org/

I think you may be breaking new ground in your field. you are likely to evolve from that but keep pushing for information.

[Tillibobs]

So I goofed !. I did my captures in Y800 format instead of AVI. My first thoughts were that I've wasted my time but I googled " Convert Y800 to AVI format and got a number of hits. Has anyone tried any of these ?
Keith

[FRAZ]

This next one I have left unfinished to see if we can get some feedback on how to rid us of this common problem. I will post this on its own but for now I want to use it as an example.

Do you see a rotational factor in this image? Ok so the original orientation isn't good. Perhaps in the future Cliff will teach us to turn things how he wants and we can all learn something. (I kinda miss Bill about now.)

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

Has anyone noticed or is it just me, that when I look at the solar group in Cloudy Nights they go overboard on details, techy stuff etc. They are telling me that I need to worry about the right focal ratio camera pixel size etc, that the 174mm is not a great or good solar camera, pixels too big. I need to use a barlow (Quark built in) and then a reducer to back the ratio back down after bumping it up and they go into all kinds of explanations that would confuse college students. Also the main consensus there seems to be that they want soft fuzzy images because that is what you see through the EP. I ask then why do they want color in their DSO images and get the galaxies as sharp as possible, even with the 16 Meade at my club you only see B&W fuzz balls so shouldn't their DSO images also be soft cotton balls?

Myself I image the sun and other objects to please myself! Most people I show images to prefer the sharper but NOT over sharpened images, and comment on the soft ones. It is a fine balance and easy to overdo, but I try.

If I want something very technical answered I will ask it on CN but for normal conversions I prefer here or even Solar Activity on FB. Here I am at Brown University giving a talk about remote imaging, techy area but I kept it simple. Before you think that I was some kind of guest lecturer, it was to my astronomy club, we met there because our club parking lot was covered with snow...

I am the good looking one in the center

Sorry, I looked but can't find a good looking one

Just shows the average amateur astronomer is older, LOL

[FRAZ]

To be fair, you do look quite distinguished. But.... I know you are from the movies so you probably dressed everyone darker, used the rule of thirds to deviate away from the chap on the right, put some crazy physics behind the chap on the left and made yourself the quiet unassuming gentleman in the middle.

You do look like you have a formula coming out of your head though. So who knows.

Just glad your here, keep it coming.

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

Closest I will ever come to the front of an Ivy League classroom! I went to a small school, Suffolk University, for Banking and Finance so I know how much to spend on camera and astro gear or at least can hide the prices from the wife! ROFL

[Lowjiber]

Fraz, I just got outta bed and thought I'd play with the nice prom/surface while I had my coffee. It's far from perfect, but I attached it below.

I cleaned the sky up with a mask. Because the right side prom is so delicate, I couldn't get the mask as perfect as I'd like. However, there is always a small amount of gases around those "frilly" proms and I think it is at least acceptable.

The distortion on the left of the surface is mostly due to the lens... I think. Burning it did no good, so I threw it in Camera Raw and adjusted the distortion a bit. Again, it's not perfect, but a little better.

Final touch was just a bit of gamma correction to try to balance the histogram. Helped a little???

All in all, it is a fine image that should be left B/W. (I threw some color on it and lost some of the subtleties on the edges of the proms.)

Thanks for the exercise... Two cups of coffee and four cigarettes later. LOL

Now, shower/shave and I'm off to the races.

Clear Skies

[Lowjiber]

Oh, by-the-way... If you switch the invert on that puppy, it's pretty cool.

[FRAZ]

Incredible surface but not so good prom.

Its about compromises i suppose.

[Tillibobs]

I give up !. I've tried to convert y800 to AVI , it's supposed to have done it but autostakert won't play ball. Better have some lunch or it's going to be tea time.

[FRAZ]

I know what you mean Keith, I'm going to bed.

Keith, you got a laptop?

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

Incredible surface but not so good prom.

Its about compromises i suppose.

I think the prom is very interesting, do you shoot the prom and surface separately and combine them later in PS?

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

So lets talk about solar systems we use so that we are all on the same page.

https://www.solarmonitor.org/

I think you may be breaking new ground in your field. you are likely to evolve from that but keep pushing for information.

I don't know how I missed solar monitor, I have been using Space Weather and Solarham, just added this to my bookmarks

[FRAZ]

I think we have seen and used all of these as we go. Maybe we should look at a sticky for solar links. The y are out there. Thanks Jeff.

[FRAZ]

I shoot all in one personally.

I get the mix and match idea and it can give good results but I like to make it look as natural as possible.

[Graeme1858]

So lets talk about solar systems we use so that we are all on the same page.

https://www.solarmonitor.org/

I use "The Sun Now" app on my phone. Images and descriptions are from NASA/SDO. https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov

Regards

Graeme

[FRAZ]

Sorry for using a sweary name for one of my image names, I now realise that it could be seen by anyone who hovers over an image.
I will make sure I change any profanity before posting.