Adamar98

A few images from this weekend. Tried an old DMK21 on the PST. I’m quite surprised with the results. Still getting a strange banding when I blend my images. Any suggestions would be greatly received.

Coronado PST, ASI174MM, DMK21

best 150 frames on each image.

sharpcap, autostakkert, ImPPG. PS.

I don’t think you could go wrong with the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM . Yes it’s cheap and yes it’s plastic. But it does exactly what it says on the tin. I think it’s a fantastic little lens for AP. Excuse the stars towards the edge. My fault for not stopping the lens down.

A few shots from a recent break in the lakes. The weather was fantastic and our location was bortle 3. All images are 2 hours intergration in 3 min subs. No calibration frames.

Canon 60da, Samyang 14&135mm sat on a Star Adventurer.

Thanks for looking

These are stunning. Unbelievable amount of detail in there. 

Hi, all.
I'm after some advice. I'm currently using a Coronado PST with a ZWO174. I'm happy with the results my little setup gives but I would like to get in a little closer and pick up a bit more detail. I'm swaying towards the Daystar quark chromosphere.
I have 2 scopes I could use. Esprit 80 and a Askar FRA400. Both give a very similar field of view. My first question is, is the diagonal an essential? I don't own one (not a problem buying one) but is it needed? My second question is regarding filters. I've seen many suggestions. Some say a uv/ir filter is a must and others say a Baader 35mn filter is better. What are your opinions and experiences with regards to this? And my last question is, is an energy reduction filter a must? Last thing I want to do is damage my scopes. Your advice and opinions would be greatly appreciated. I don't want to spend a ton of money on equipment not needed. Thanks for reading and thanks in advance to your replies. Cheer, Adam

I've only had a few chances to get out with the scope over the past week. Today I got a ton of data. I'm Slowly getting my head around the processing side of things. Still struggling with the mosaic side of thing. I'm sure I'll get there. I'm still enjoying this branch of our fantastic hobby. I'm amazed at how much and how quickly the suns appearance can change. Here are a few recent efforts from me. Constructive criticism always welcome.

All images taken with the Coronado PST. ASI174mm 2x barlow.

cheers for looking.

4 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

They say that earlier in the morning before the sun heats the earth causing hot air thermals is better ...

thank you, You're a plethora of knowledge.

I’m new to solar imaging. With regards to seeing, are there certain times of day when it’s better?

22 hours ago, Priesters said:

I’m considering starting solar but probably just visual given I’ve yet to properly learn ‘normal’ astrophotography image processing so starting another steep learning curve right now doesn’t seem sensible.  My question is how does visual solar compare to imaging solar?   Is the gap as big as it is between DSO visual and DSO imaging I.e. grey fuzzy blob v full colour spectrum and fine detail.

I only have a 20mm eyepiece. Compared to the image you don’t see as much detail. You certainly don’t see the granulation. But many of the other features are visible. It’s fascinating to look at.

34 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

Is the front lens blue or orange?

Have you got a mono image , ie before you colourised it?

its blue. I presume there is a reason why you ask? Here's the mono image.

2 hours ago, newbie alert said:

That's a excellent image...

How old is your PST?

Thank you. I don’t know the age of the scope. I bought it secondhand.

17 minutes ago, Elp said:

It's a great image overall, for your first it's stunning. Your PST certainly performs much better than mine as I hardly see any surface detail at all.

Probably a daft question but have you tuned it? Mine showed no detail until I found it’s “sweet spot”.

This is my first week of solar imaging. I’m absolutely hooked. I’m slowly getting my head around the processing side of things. I was foolish enough to think that having a background in astrophotography, the processing would be easy. Idiot. One thing I do find myself doing with solar imaging compared to regular astrophotography, I’ve started observing! I’m spending a good half hour looking in awe at the sun after a imaging run. I can’t get enough of it and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. Anyhow here’s my latest effort.

Coronado PST, ASI174mm 2 x Barlow.

Thanks for looking.

19 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Here is example of joined prominence images:

and associated 16bit tiff:

composite_prom.tif 5.08 MB · 1 download

Do be careful when using barlow. If you change something to your setup - like distances, image size will change. Two parts of prominence image were of different magnification and that makes stitching even more difficult.

Now you can take that image and combine with original image in the way you want.

Thank you very much for the advice. It’s my first image. I have a lot to learn and I’m sure I’ll have a lot more questions. You’ve been a great help.

14 minutes ago, Steve Ward said:

You would be better off posting the images in a format that allows us to see them , I'm sure I am not alone in refusing to download unknown files in order to view them.

Sorry. 

I never thought of it like that. Here are the images in a viewable format.

Cheers

Adam

Hi, I've recently started my journey with solar imaging. I'm using a Coronado PST, ZWO ASI174mm and a 2 x barlow. I'm after a full disc image. From what I understand ,  I need to take separate images for the surface detail and one for the prominence. I've used Microsoft ICE to stitch the surface images without any problems. But when I come to stitch the prominence images, its having none of it. I've also tried Photoshop merge and Autostitch to no avail. What am I doing wrong? Here are the Images. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Stitched

bottomsurf_stitch.tiff

Prominence Images

topprom.tif

bottomprom.tif

Thanks in Advance

Adam

That's a great FOV and a great image. Beautifully done.

Had a quick go at it. Cropped, DBE , Background neutralisation, Colour calibration, Stretched, Curves and a bit of star reduction. I hope you don't mind that I rotated it.

4 minutes ago, Skipper Billy said:

5 hours - 2 hours L in 15 min subs binned 1x1 and 1 hour each of RGB in 10 min binned 2x2

Atik 16200 mono.

Bortle 2 skies.

 

 

I wish I had bortle 2 skies! Great image.

9 minutes ago, tomato said:

My default exposure setting for RGB imaging with this set up is 120 secs. I could spend a lot of time optimising the exposure time for my sky conditions, scope/camera setup, but that number seems to work for me 95% of the time.

Thanks for your feedback. I now have hope that I’ll achieve something. If it turns out half as good as yours, I’ll be a happy man.

2 hours ago, tomato said:

This is my result from a Bortle 5/6 location with a RASA8/QHY268c, 6 hrs integration. I would haver thought my  OSC camera has to be less sensitive than your mono setup so definitely worth a go in my view.

That’s a beauty! Very encouraging. Thank you for this. Looks like I have a new target to chase. What exposure time did you go for? I tried 5 mins but they’re a bit washed out. 3 mins seem ok.

I’m contemplating going after LDN 1235 the shark nebula. I’m sure I’ll have to collect a fair amount of data but will it be worth it? I’m on the outskirts of a city. My bortle scale is 6. I’ll be using my Askar FRA400 @ f3.9 paired with my Atik 460. I’ve tried a few subs at 300 seconds but they look a little washed out. 180 second subs look fine. I was planning to collect around 15-20 hours in luminance and 5 hours each RGB (weather/moon permitting). Before I set out on this task, is it going to be worth all the effort? Will I get the required signal at those sub lengths in a class 6 bortle sky? Any feedback or examples of images with similar conditions would be greatly appreciated.

9 hours ago, Shibby said:

My Oiii is the Astrodon and I don't have the halos, however I have a reflector so that's probably not relevant.

I would have thought that, with 51 sub-exposures, the halo would stack/reject out if it was only on a few of the subs.

I checked the subs, they all seem fine. I’ve given the oiii a good stretch and there’s nothing untoward. I’ve been having a play around with colour masks in some of my recent processing. I’m wondering if it could be that. I’m going to have another go at processing it. I’ll keep my eye on the stars and watch for when the halo starts to appear. Thanks for your feedback. It’s appreciated.

17 hours ago, Shibby said:

Fantastic work, a very nice result!

Am I reading that right - 28hours?! Great dedication.

I can't really help with the processing of blue halos... what Oiii filter are you using?

Thank you. It’s the first image I’ve done with this amount of data (28 hours). It certainly helps with the processing having a nice amount of data. I’m using the Astrodon filters. I suspect I have a few stray Oii subs that are slightly out of focus or effected by high cloud. I’m going to check through them this evening. And no doubt another reprocess. 

That’s tidy. Great image.