Montana

Thanks guys x6gas, yes 3 wins (2014, 2017 and 2020) but never the main title, there is always a challenge I can hope.... I still have a long way to go to match the amazing work of others like Christian Viladrich, Alex, Valery, JP etc but that is what keeps you fighting. However, most of the time it is more satisfying and fun to just stop, sit and enjoy the Sun with your eyeballs and sketching pad, and most of all, showing others. Alexandra

Thanks guys for the lovely wishes, it does mean a lot I am always looking at your images even if I don't comment all the time. I love to see what everyone is doing. Moderating Solarchat these days seems to take a lot of time up Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2020- Our Sun - Winner by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr Alexandra

Wow!! star quality work! well done Alexandra

Absolutely stunning work!! I am loving your CaK results Alexandra

Cracking animation! is that a transitory pore opening up and disappearing? what was the timescale? Alexandra

That's fabulous! not many people do CaK animations and it does produce this strange surface effect, nice work Alexandra

Absolutely fabulous images! thanks for sharing Alexandra

I have also found that I can't remove the dust bunnies from my ASI174 and flats don't work that well either. However I dropped my camera the other week on the floor with much cursing but the bunny shifted and is gone! hooray! however I don't recommend dropping your camera deliberately. The dust is on the inside and can't be blown away and I find it the most irritating camera I have ever owned. A friend had success by using an anti static gun for use on records (do you remember them) and it helped it to unstick off the window. Alexandra

Tej, I had exactly the same problem. don't use oil. Use the rubber boa, I had never heard of one either but found one in a local hardware store. It comes with full instructions on the packet I had tonnes of loctite on mine and sadly had to enlist the help of the hubby as I was not strong enough to do it. What I found a huge help was using a hairdryer. Let it blow on the area (not too close - like you would to your hair) for 5 minutes. When it was nice a hot the hubby went for it and it just shifted straight away. Alexandra

I think Michael says it all. Flats are very hard to get right. I think taking a flat near the centre is OK in most circumstances, but when you have such a close up with huge lights and darks it will compensate in the opposite direction. I once chatted with Emil about this and he seemed to indicate that it would never work well. Also, do you have two images here and doing a composite? if so, you don't need to use a flat on the over exposed image as dust bunnies never show on the black of space anyway, then use the flat on the disc part only as you aren't using the black space area for that picture anyway, so it should be win win all around. It is called the art of fudging, getting round the problem to get a great image Why are you still using ASK2? ASK3 has been around for ages is is much better These are terrific images by the way, superb resolution and it looks like you got round the dust bunny situation anyway Alexandra

Wow!! maybe the Basler and FLIR versions have better cooling systems for the chip! I need to check my temperature of my ASI174 next time I am out, maybe it needs a cooler attached? it probably has Covid-19 Alexandra

Yep, your prominence is full of little dots. All my images are full of little dots and it puts me off using it. I have to use very aggressive de-noise on all my images to get rid of them. I thought I was just being useless and maybe not stacking enough, but I have never seen others having this problem you see. I regret not spending the extra couple of hundred for the Grasshopper or Basler version Now I see your prom image, it does look like mine. However I don't see a weird condensation look when in live view like you showed before. All my grain comes when I try to post sharpen the stack. I have tried no gain vs some gain and it is still just as bad. Even stacking more and the dots are still there but the detail of the image are lost. With my Grasshopper (different chip) I can stack as low as 20-50 images and still not have dots, for the ASI174 I have to stack more than 300 to be even reasonable which is not an option for hires work. Good luck! Alexandra

I wish I could see this more clearly what you are talking about here. I also get a very annoying grain in all my solar images with the ASI174 which the Basler and Grasshopper versions don't seem to suffer from. I have to use very heavy denoise to get rid of it but sometimes I think, is this solar structure or noise as it is so consistent. I'd love to see close up exactly what you mean to compare to mine. Alexandra

Beautiful!!! but surely it should capture video with the Basler software, it is a video camera? Alexandra

A great start first images are always such a major triumph, so well done! The first thing you need to do is bring the exposure right down, a lot. You will then find that focus is much easier. Practice will make perfect so keep up the good work! Alexandra

It will be great to see you again Steve Helen, can't you come both days Ade, it will be great to meet you too if you can make it I think I might carry a sign with Solarchat on it so I am more conspicuous Alexandra

That's a pity Dave. I too preferred it when it was in May when it first started Alexandra

That's a pity Charl, it would have been nice to meet you. Thanks Alan, I will definitely be passing by the FLO stand as I have lots of shopping to do so I might spot you. If you want to chat pure solar please do come for lunch Alexandra

Hello everyone, I was wondering if anyone was going to IAS 2019? If anyone here is, I am planning to meet for a Solarchat at 12pm on the Saturday. I thought we could meet outside the cafe and then have a lunch together and chat all things solar. It would be nice to meet everyone and makes the day a bit more special. All warmly welcome, I hope someone comes. Kind regards Alexandra

Well done!!!!! a great achievement Alexandra

I had a transit yesterday but I didn't even bother to take the day off, it rained all day as usual. Alexandra

Wow! Dave! you are a patient guy!!! I gave up on try 2 Alexandr

Thanks James, you are amazing really because I never thought it possible to do this with a Apple computer. Point 4. Usually in firecapture or ICCapture there is a little counter/clock at the side, so when you press the record button a little dial starts counting in real time how many frames you are capturing. So you can sit and watch and manually click stop when you hit 200 frames, 800 frames, 2029 frames if you wish. In this version with no counter you are blind. If you forget to hit the limit button and set where you want to stop the recording then you sit there and think, hmmm when did I hit the record button, I wonder how many frames I have recorded? The only way to tell is to hit stop and go and view the file in Autostakkert or Registax. It would be a nice extra feature if you ever got round to it, for forgetful people like me Well done though, very pleased with my image, so I hope the Sun does come out in the Pyrenees next week Alexandra

Did you manage to get the gamma working in Firecapture? Alexandra

OK so this evening I tried out OaCapture to capture the Sun with the DMK41. There are a few querks and it took about an hour to work them out. I am writing this down mainly so I don't forget next week when I need it. 1. The manual exposure issue. Initially I put the camera in the PST and then opened the software. Because it goes immediately to automatic exposure it ramped the exposure really high as I hadn't found the Sun and the telescope was dark. I changed to manual exposure via the above method but when I found the Sun it was impossible to get an exposure low enough. Even with a double stack on I was at 3 micro seconds and it was just OK. Single stack was impossible. I thought this aint right, so I closed the program down and started up with the camera out of the telescope and facing the Sun so when the automatic exposure kicked in it didn't ramp it up. Then when I changed to manual exposure I had a good range and double stack was about 40 milli seconds and single stack exposure was possible. It seems that wherever the auto exposure changes to the manual exposure starts from that point when you change it. So it seems a bit random and exposures are not the same each time, weird but workable. 2. the next problem was I took several AVI and checked them for processing on my Windows PC and ran them through Autostakkert and started to post process. Nope, it seemed to record on a very high compression and the pictures were very pixellated. Next try I found in the Capture settings you need to tick both boxes, Windows compatible AND no compression. It worked. 3. It doesn't seem to remember settings once the program is closed. I need to remember to set the file path for capture, tick limit to 1000 frames and check the two boxes are ticked for the AVI settings. 4. I must remember to tick the frame limit as there is no way of knowing how many frames you are capturing as there is no counter, if you don't set this limit you would need to calculate with the calculator how long you need to capture for with your frame rate and use a stop watch. Very querky but at least I did it and with the Apple being the only computer coming on holiday next week at least I can now snatch it from the hubby and take a quick capture with the PST. Here is my final effort, very pleased with myself and thank you very much James oaCapture-20190826-180145_f colour by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr Alexandra