X2.0 Flare!

[JB80]

I had half packed up for the day but the scope was still out when this flare took off. By the time I had the laptop and camera out it was in full swing. Because of the brightness I had to use a much dimmer exposure than normal and this caused headaches when it came to processing but still turned out alright I reckon.

[Mark at Beaufort]

Jarrod excellent images. I will be sorry to see this sunspot leave - unless it comes back around again.

[Davide Simonetti]

Wow, that's an awesome image!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Superb images, I spotted this one with a couple of students.

[nightfisher]

Amazing, what a well caught set of images

[Luke]

Great shots, Jarrod, it's on fire!! :laugh:

[Steve Ward]

Nice timing Jarrod ... 

[Mick J]

Just putting away.......... then catch this, thanks - that's outstanding,  seems to have come out alright to me as well      lets hope it comes round again.

[Pete Presland]

wow thats a beauty!

[JB80]

Thanks everybody!

Jarrod excellent images. I will be sorry to see this sunspot leave - unless it comes back around again.

Just putting away.......... then catch this, thanks - that's outstanding,  seems to have come out alright to me as well      lets hope it comes round again.

I hope it'll come back around. I think it will do but there might not be as much of it left as I think it's starting to break up but who knows.

Another couple of weeks and we shall see.

[Montana]

Wow! you are so lucky!!

Alexandra

[Iainp]

Wow, amazing image!  I have an embarrassing 'newbie' question though: which part is the flare?? Is it the central bright region just below the spot on the right? I'd like to know as I captured an image at a similar time I think. Is the flare showing here too?    As you'll see, unfortunately my image is a pale reflection of this one... (Or rather, a bright red reflection ;-) 

http://iainpetrie.typepad.com/.a/6a00e393395037883401b8d0872c58970c-pi  

[JB80]

Thanks all!

The flare itself is the bright white regions, when a flare goes off you will see a bright area start to form and it's possible to observe the whole event and see it dim back into the normal view in a matter of minutes. This one was a particularly big one covering a huge area.

You have definitely caught it in your pic as well. Well done, it took me a long time before I saw one.

[Iainp]

That'a great. Thank you. 

[Twisted Lip]

Amazing picture!

If you don't mind me asking how many frames did you take and what processing steps did you go through to get it?

Will

[JB80]

Amazing picture!

If you don't mind me asking how many frames did you take and what processing steps did you go through to get it?

Will

Thanks Will!

I don't mind at all, I'll try my best to go through it.

Firstly, I generally aim to take a 1000ish frames, sometimes if seeing is poor I might go for 2000 but between 1 & 2000 is about what I do.

From there I take the avi to Autostakkert for stacking, I select the 'surface' setting and then 'analyse'.

Once that is done I then place some squares around whatever the main features of the shot are, this is done by just clicking on the image in Autostakkert and when I am done I then hit the 'Places squares in a grid' button.

Then I hit 'Stack' and let the software run through.

Once done it will save an image in a new folder and then I take it over to photoshop. (GIMP probably does the same thing as PS but I don't know the steps in GIMP)

I open the image in PS and then choose 'Smart Sharpen' under the 'Filter' drop down menu. I move the 'Amount' slider so it says %500 and the 'Radius' to 1.5 or 2.0 or even 2.5, it just depend on how much the image needs sharpening, you can see on screen when you have over sharpened so just drop the Radius back a little bit.

After that it is just some cosmetic changes like 'contrast' and 'brightness', adding the colour to the pic and cropping to taste.

This is pretty much the basic run down, others may do things differently or have a suggestion to add or not do something which I'm always keen to hear too. There are other methods and software I have been experimenting with but the above is what I feel a good starting point without confusing the matter too much.

Maybe I will write up a blog post about it that goes into more depth when the weather turns.

Hope that helps a bit and any questions feel free to ask.

[Twisted Lip]

Thanks Jarrod, thats stop information. The main reason I ask is Registax has been my traditional stacking tool (for non-Deep Sky stuff anyway) but I've used a new camera for solar imaging and its struggling a bit and AS!2 definitely seems to be the tool of choice these days. I think I'm going to download it now and see if I can give it whirl on a couple of AVIs I took earlier. 

Sadly, not much was happening on the Sun today and just as the clouds cleared it hit the tree-line! Also struggling to get reasonable prominences with the Grasshopper (its either good surface detail or winding up the exposure to allow complete saturation of the surface just to see anything going on around the outside! Need a bit more practice with the setup I think to see what I can get out of it but definitely going to run it through AS!2 to see what it can come up with.

Cheers for the advice!

Will

[JB80]

No worries Will, I still do use registax5.1 occasionally but AS!2 has definitely taken over as my main stacking software and Regi can be quite temperamental at times. Try it out for sure and practice with it and see if you like it. It is also the best planetary stacker I have used. Sometimes though you just have to use the one that works for the given situation.

For Proms I do tend to wind the exposure up which does saturate the disc but it is the best way of getting the faint detail.

[Twisted Lip]

No worries Will, I still do use registax5.1 occasionally but AS!2 has definitely taken over as my main stacking software and Regi can be quite temperamental at times. Try it out for sure and practice with it and see if you like it. It is also the best planetary stacker I have used. Sometimes though you just have to use the one that works for the given situation.

For Proms I do tend to wind the exposure up which does saturate the disc but it is the best way of getting the faint detail.

Thanks Jarrod.

Well I took your advice and gave it a crack on an avi I took yesterday (not a lot of data, only 500 frames taken, no proms either as clouds/trees/nature etc got in the way before I could try even get a second exposure!). 

I have to admit, it was a lot easier (and quicker which I wasn't expecting) than Registax and it came out with something not too shabby given the lack of data that went in. Excuse the double quick half-cut post-processing in PS!

Cheers

Will

[Iainp]

I'll just put my penny's worth in re the Registax vrs Autostakkert debate: totally agree with Jarrod that it pays to experiment with both. I've had images that I can't get anything decent out of with Registax and AS!2 does a fantastic job. On other occasions I've been disappointed with AS!2 and Registax does the trick. Here's an example where AS!2 was a clear winner. It's a Monn shot but the same holds for the sun, in my (very limited!) experience.

See the animated Gif and the bottom of the post:

http://www.fouragesofsand.com/2014/04/copernicus-magic-registax-6-vrs-autostakkert2-.html 

[Twisted Lip]

I'll just put my penny's worth in re the Registax vrs Autostakkert debate: totally agree with Jarrod that it pays to experiment with both. I've had images that I can't get anything decent out of with Registax and AS!2 does a fantastic job. On other occasions I've been disappointed with AS!2 and Registax does the trick. Here's an example where AS!2 was a clear winner. It's a Monn shot but the same holds for the sun, in my (very limited!) experience.

See the animated Gif and the bottom of the post:

http://www.fouragesofsand.com/2014/04/copernicus-magic-registax-6-vrs-autostakkert2-.html

Thanks Iain, great link.

Definitely think you're right, being able to work with both looks to be a big advantage. Looks like the Sun may make an appearance tomorrow so I'll try and get some more data and run it through both to see what happens.

Cheers

Will