20th March Solar Imaging

[Xio1996]

Hi Everybody,

I have been wanting to do some Solar EAA for sometime and today I manged to get outside and give it a go. There was a lot of high and medium cloud with some small gusts of wind, but it was nice and warm in the sunshine. I placed my Celestron NexStar 4se onto the decking table next to the laptop and added the home-made Solar filter and Altair Astro 294c colour camera. Aligning was incredibly easy, with the little scope and hand-controller.

I was using SharpCap to image the Sun. After a bit of focussing I took a single frame snapshot of the Sun. As you see there were a few dust motes on the image. I used an air blower and removed quite a few before continuing.

Switching to SharpCap's Live Solar/Lunar/Planetary tool, I was amazed to find that it just started stacking. From then on I started playing with all the great features of the tool. As I was using a colour camera I adjusted the colour, did some wavelet sharpening. Even started throwing away sub-optimum frames. The decadence Finally, I got the following full disk image. I was just amazed how good the live stacking tool was. I did get rid of the remaining dust motes in Windows Photo using the Retouch tool.

It was great to zoom into different sunspots and explore. Here is Sunspot 3615 (left) and 3614 (right).

Below, is a screenshot of SharpCap in live stacking mode, very impressive tool.

I still have loads to learn but it was great fun to do some solar observing.

Have fun.

Pete

[Lady Fraktor]

Some nice images Pete

[messier 111]

fine spots , thx .

[StarHugger]

Nice Solar Eaaing Pete,

You observed a ton of spots there wow,

cool you got a chance to get things going!

[Graeme1858]

Excellent EAA solar shots Pete.

Was the first image colour a result of the single frame capture and the camera's Bayer filter? And did you post process the EAA stacked image or is that straight out of the can? Sorry for the newbie questions, I'm a solar newbie!

Graeme

[Xio1996]

Excellent EAA solar shots Pete.

Was the first image colour a result of the single frame capture and the camera's Bayer filter? And did you post process the EAA stacked image or is that straight out of the can? Sorry for the newbie questions, I'm a solar newbie!

Graeme

Hi Graeme,

Solar imaging is all new to me. I was excited to get anything at all, but that was down to the software and luck, I expect

The first image was just a straight single-frame snapshot (raw8, 11.4ms exposure, gain 900, no external processing of the image). All I did was adjust the exposure. The Altair Astro 294c has no colour controls in SharpCap (only in live stacking). The Debayer preview was on so that is what the Sun looked like before I messed with it

The yellow colour images, were the result of playing with the 'Image Adjustments' in the Live Planetary Stacking tool in SharpCap. I didn't have a clue what I was doing! I liked the yellow colour, even though it was artificial, so I went with it for the observing session. You can see the settings I used in the screenshot of SharpCap. Before posting these yellow images I used Windows Photos app to remove the dust-motes (Retouch tool) and I did play with the Shadow and Highlight sliders. To be honest, the image coming out of SharpCap was really pleasing and I could have played with the image adjustments rather than using the Windows Photos app. The image below is the same one from my original post, output directly from SharpCap (no external processing).

I have so much to learn. First of all I need to make a flat (and dark) for my se4 to get rid of those visual imperfections. I hope that's right, a flat does still work in solar imaging? I used a gain of 900 which is where the HCG mode kicks in and reduces read-noise. Alas, I forgot that my camera has a little problem at this gain and I should have used 950-1000. Though, is that the right gain to use!? Also, in my excitement I didn't notice that the Black Level was set to 1. I find it is usually much higher 90-100 during "night-time" EAA. So much to try and understand!!!

I think my initial goal is to get a better handle on SharpCap's Solar Live Stacking tool and correct image problems at source. Then, learn more about this star we orbit and the features I might be able to see with my setup.

A fun journey awaits

Have fun.

Pete

[Thefatkitty]

Good for you Pete, that was a fun read! I love your setup too. And if that was your first image of the Sun I am impressed; I wish mine back in 2016 was that good If I can ask, what solar film are you using?
"The decadence", that is so funny!! But it really came out well with Sharpcap, I never thought of using that. The detail you have is great too. Methinks you are indeed on a fun journey
I've never tried using a flat or dark frames, so no help here. I usually copy the image of the Sun with the "lasso" capture in PS and put it on a totally black new image.

Again Pete, very well done and hope to see more!

All the best,

[Xio1996]

Good for you Pete, that was a fun read! I love your setup too. And if that was your first image of the Sun I am impressed; I wish mine back in 2016 was that good If I can ask, what solar film are you using?
"The decadence", that is so funny!! But it really came out well with Sharpcap, I never thought of using that. The detail you have is great too. Methinks you are indeed on a fun journey
I've never tried using a flat or dark frames, so no help here. I usually copy the image of the Sun with the "lasso" capture in PS and put it on a totally black new image.

Again Pete, very well done and hope to see more!

All the best,

Hi Mark,

Thank you for your kind words. That was the first time I have imaged the Sun. The last time I observed the Sun was 6-7 years ago and that was visually. I was really inspired by viewing the amazing solar images from you guys on this forum.

The filter was made with the Baader Planetarium Astro Solar Safety Film (A4 sheet).

SharpCap live solar stacking is an amazing feature. Now, I'm waiting for the Sun to appear from behind the clouds so I can give it another go.

Have fun.

Pete