GreatAttractor

I had had an EQ5 (rebadged as Bresser MON-2), worked fine for visual and Solar System imaging with a SW Mak 180 and even with a SW Explorer 150PL (150 mm f/8 Newt).

Jupiter with Ganymede and Io from 2023-09-07. The dark area on Ganymede is Galileo Regio; Io looks a bit flattened due to dark polar areas (cf. this Io transit animation).

Telescope: SW 250PDS (10" f/4.8 Newtonian), camera: Blackfly S (IMX 273), ZWO ADC, Meade Barlow 3x, Baader UV/IR-cut filter, processed with AS!3 and ImPPG. 7 ms exposure, 140 fps, approx. 7600 frames per video (5% stacked), 1-minute animation intervals, duration: 1:30 h.

(right-click a video for the looping option)

Here's the Moon from 2 nights ago, during the break in between Jupiter captures:

Seeing illustration (slowed down from 140 to 24 fps):

Telescope: SW 250PDS (254 mm f/4.8 Newtonian), Meade Barlow 3x, camera: Blackfly S (IMX 273), Baader orange >570 nm filter. Processed in AS!3 and ImPPG.

Very good start (and definitely beats my initial attempts)!

Remember to sharpen with care; in your image it's a bit "overcooked", as can be seen e.g. from the ringing artifact along the limb.

Here's another full disc for reference (only 50 mm aperture):

https://astrob.in/full/105799/0/?real=

AR 3363 from 2023-07-11 in good seeing. Telescope: Sky-Watcher 250PDS (250 mm f/4.8 Newtonian) with Baader ND 5 solar film, Baader planetary green + UV/IR-cut filters. Camera: FLIR Blackfly S (IMX 273). 3390 frames (7% stacked), exposure 3 ms, gain 13.2 dB. Stacked in AS!3, processed in ImPPG.

AR 3354 from 2023-06-29 in good seeing. Telescope: Intes M715 (180 mm f/15 MCT) with Baader ND 3.8 solar film, Baader Solar Continuum + UV/IR-cut filters. Camera: FLIR Blackfly S (IMX 273). 3390 frames (7% stacked), exposure 3 ms, gain 14 dB.Stacked in AS!3, processed in ImPPG.

Lively limb activity in Hα captured on 2022-06-13 in average seeing. Telescope: Intes M715 (180 mm f/15 MCT) with Aries ERF and Lunt 50 etalon. Camera: FLIR Blackfly S (IMX 273). 4500 frames per video (5% stacked), exposure 1 ms, gain 7.8 dB. 20-second animation intervals, 23 minutes total.  Stacked in AS!3, processed in ImPPG.

On Wednesday I tested the Intes M715+Aries ERF+Lunt 50 etalon combination. Even though the seeing wasn't exceptional, taking a lot of frames helped.

Everything captured with Blackfly S (IMX 273), processed in AS!3 and ImPPG. Note: right-click a video for looping and fullscreen options.

M4.7 flare in AR 3327 (20-second intervals, 2:48 h total, with breaks due to clouds):

Prominence animation (25-second intervals, 0:42 h total):

Minor activity in AR 3329 - a microflare? There was nothing in the NOAA solar event list (15-second intervals, 0:25 h total):

On Monday I left my setup recording for 6 hours, hoping for the forecast possible X-class flare, but to no avail. Among the few lesser flares there was an interesting "unfurling" one (30 s intervals, 1:20 h total; right-click the video for looping option):

Some more activity (30 s intervals, 1:06 h total):

Overview of AR 3313 & 3311:

90 mm refractor + Lunt 50 etalon, Blackfly S (IMX 273), processed in AS!3 + ImPPG.

Statistics: 722 videos (1800 frames each, 10% stacked), 985 GB, stacked with AS!3 in 7:48 h (Ryzen 2700 8C/16T CPU), batch-processed with ImPPG 1:45 min.

ImPPG v. 1.9.1-beta is out with the following bug fixes:

• Invalid channel order when loading 8-bit RGB images
• Cannot enable adaptive unsharp mask
• Crash when using adaptive unsharp mask in CPU & bitmaps mode

Homepage: https://greatattract...ithub.io/imppg/

Download: https://github.com/G...tag/v1.9.1-beta

ImPPG v. 1.9.0-beta is out with the following new features:

• Scripting support (Lua); see the documentation for details
• Multiple unsharp masks
• RGB processing

Note that some UI strings do not have translations yet. If you encounter any other problems, please report them via GitHub, e-mail or a PM.

Homepage: https://greatattractor.github.io/imppg/

Download from: https://github.com/GreatAttractor/imppg/releases/tag/v1.9.0-beta

I had very good seeing at my high-altitude location on 30.08, here are a few animations with different filters. Telescope: Intes M715, camera: Blackfly S (IMX 273). 1-minute intervals between frames (55 s of recording, 5 s breaks); processed in AS!3 and ImPPG.

Note: videos can be looped via right-click. I recommend narrowing the browser window a bit, so they don't display so large.

1) Baader red >610 nm filter; 1:30 h:

2) Baader UV/IR-cut (part 1) and switching back to the red filter (part 2); 1:41 h:

Finally, an OSC video made with ZWO ASI 462MC a few days before (I need to work on my RGB processing); 0:28 h:

19 hours ago, Pete Presland said:

Thanks for responding @GreatAttractor they are very good images you have posted links to. what setting are you using on those?

Unsharp mask sigma around 1.3, amount 6-8; but as usual, you should fine-tune the parameters to your images. Select a small area (e.g., just the granulation), temporarily stretch the contrast, and play with the sliders until the features starts looking unnatural/"overcooked".

1 hour ago, Pete Presland said:

I nearly always use IMPPG for all my solar image sharpening. But since i have been using the C9.25 for white light imaging, i have thought the images have been either noisy or lacking in a little sharpness.

I've noticed L-R deconvolution doesn't work that well on WL - but applying just some unsharp masking is quite alright (link, link). (I might investigate R6-style wavelets for future inclusion in ImPPG).

Nice catch! What equipment did you use?

Thanks!

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

And solar film at that!

Well, of course. Baader film's thickness is uniform to 1/10 λ or so. As reported e.g. by users on CN, cheap glass filters do not compare well to that  (a 1/10 λ 180 mm glass would probably cost ~1k €).

The seeing on Thursday was mediocre, but my 3-hour session yielded a few good stacks. All taken with Intes M715, Baader ND 3.8 solar film + Solar Continuum filter, Blackfly S (IMX 273), processed with AS!3 and ImPPG.

High-cadence granulation time lapse (my first; the old ones from 2012 used 1-4 minute intervals, here it's just 15 s, 9 minutes total):

(note: videos can be looped via right-click)

Finally, a fast-forward animation spanning the whole session (3:11 h total); note the twist of the lower sunspots and the dis/appearing pores:

Unpleasantly hot today, but I managed to test my new Intes M715 (180 mm f/15 Rutten-Maksutov-Cassegrain). I haven't checked the collimation yet, might need some tweaking. The seeing was unfortunately too unstable for an animation:

Blackfly S (IMX 273), Baader ND 3.8 solar film + Solar Continuum, processed in AS!3 and ImPPG.

Looking from Earth, I'm in the direction of The Southern Triangle constellation. (Whoever's read Stephen Baxter's Ring — recommended! — knows the attraction effect is actually due to the Xeelee building a naked Kerr singularity to open a gateway to another universe.)

2022-05-18: Hα animation of a C4.7 solar flare in Active Region 3014 (20-second intervals, 0:24 h total; right-click for looping option):

telescope & filters: Celestron 90/660 mm (achromat), Baader D-ERF 90 mm, Lunt LS50THa etalon + B600 blocking filter

camera: Blackfly S (IMX273) + Barlow 1.6x

software: AutoStakkert!3 (stacking), ImPPG (post-processing and animation alignment), FFMPEG (video encoding)

Note: right-click a video for looping & full screen options.

On Wednesday I let my imaging setup (90/660 mm achro + LS50THa etalon) run between 10:47-18:06 (1300 videos), alas, still haven't caught an X-class flare. But at least I saw my prettiest loops so far.

Minor flare and loops (20-second intervals, 1:32 h total):

C4.7 flare in AR 3014 (20-second intervals, 0:24 h total):

Bonus track: high-res liquid sunshine, i.e., an M3.0 flare (though in mediocre seeing and with intermittent high clouds; 20-s intervals, 2:37 h total, RC8 + LS50THa):

Everything shot with Blackfly S (IMX 273), processed with AS!3 and ImPPG.

17 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Is it F/7 scope and you shortened the tube and fashioned adapter for etalon to be screwed in (soft of PST mod with Lunt internal etalon)?

Indeed I have. See this thread.

I was hoping for another X-class flare from AR 3007, but only caught some small-scale limb activity above AR 3011. Everything shot with a 90 mm refractor coupled with LS50THa etalon, Blacfkly S (IMX 273), processed with AS!3 and ImPPG.

AR 3007:

AR 3011:

15-second intervals, 1:07 h total:

9 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

It's quite a large file, not sure how to make it smaller and still retain the quality, any suggestions welcome.

I use the free tool FFMPEG for this. I've described how to fine-tune the video  bitrate in this post. The description there assumes you have a lossless animated GIF as input, but FFMPEG can work as well with a sequence of frames. Say, you have files someprefix_001_somesuffix.bmp, someprefix_002_somesuffix.bmp, ..., you can then specify the input as:

-i someprefix_%03d_somesuffix.bmp

In related news: Salvatore will enable MP4 uploads to Astrobin this year (in my experience an all-details-preserving H264 video can be 10-20x smaller than the corresponding animated GIF).