Rob63

Outstanding capture, I saw your post on Solarchat, so jealous as we have constant cloud cover and rain here.

Thanks once again for the great data, this one was more challenging to process particularly in the OIII channel. Processing details listed below image. Crop & DBE to each channel, To get a stars layer, use PixelMath to combine as SHO and starnet++ then delete SHO combine as we will create this differently. Each channel Small stretch with HistogramTransformation Starnet++ to remove stars this allowed me to fix some of the issues with the OIII halos/artifacts around bright stars Balance channels with HistogramTransformation Create SuperLum (90%Ha) PixelMath combine as SHO Multiple small stretches with HistogramTransformation then a MaskedStretch LRGBCombination using SuperLum Remove magenta stars with pixelmath HDRMultiscaleTransform (masked) LocalHistogramEqualization ExponentialTransformation SCNR Stars layer For the stars, I used several Small stretches via HistogramTransformation to keep them tight with good colour. PhotometricColorCalibration for star colour and background neutralisation Export to Photoshop Combine nebula & stars Adjust contrast, colour and saturation to taste Flatten and export

Following your progress with the tri band with interest Michael. Focus is soft but you can still see that there is a lot of great detail in there. Once you get things sorted this is going to be a very impressive setup.

Very brief session on Wed before the clouds rolled in. All captured using the ED80 & Quark AR2882 A nice prom in the North East And an RGB version AR 2880

Really love those CaK images David, I might well be tempted to the "purple side" next year.

Finally getting through the data I captured this weekend (220Gb), I wasn't expecting too much as, while the seeing was good, it was very windy. Quite happy with the results though. All images captured using ED120MM on an EQ6-R Ha: ASI174MM with Quark (Chromo) + Baader 35nm as EFF WL: ASI290MM + 3x TV Barlow + Lunt wedge + Baader Continuum filter AR2871 AR2871 3-panel (2 good, 1 not so good) AR2872 Sunspot (AR2871)

Shame about the seeing but I think the potential of this setup is huge, has the Lunt50 mod been documented anywhere? I look forward to seeing more.

False hope ?

I got my copy this week it's a Superb book, high quality printing and images and is a resource that I will be using for many years to come.

Still doing its thing. Managed to get some data this lunchtime, not the ideal time but I have been clouded out for the last few days and was keen to get a close look with the 120mm + Quark and ASI174MM Processing: AutoStakkert, IMPPG, Photoshop Mono RGB

Managed to capture enough frames over 2 hours for a nice animation of an active prominence yesterday. The really annoying thing is that near the end, just as the long "tail" is doing it's thing, a bunch of clouds rolled in so I lost several minutes just at the wrong time! I have looped video forwards the backwards it's quite mesmerising. 120mm ED, UV/IR filter, Quark and ASI174MM => AutoStakkert, IMPPG, Photoshop I am having problems getting video to show up here (admin says too big or complex?) so here is a Link to the full Solar prom animation (larger sized, looped forwards & back) on my dropbox Solar prom animation Ha_RGB-2021-08-04-0836 I have managed to upload a Smaller (non fw/bw looped) version

Thanks, I always prefer mono for Solar Ha but I seem to be in a minority unfortunately. Probably comes from decades of B&W film photography.

Thanks, the seeing is not usually good enough here for me to use the 120mm but this weekend it was pretty good.

Some nice activity on the Sun this weekend, this 2 panel mosaic is the first processing I have done from around 500Gb of captured data ! 120mm ED, UV/IR filter, Quark and ASI174MM => AutoStakkert, IMPPG, Photoshop Mono False RGB Update: another one from Saturday closer to the limb

Good choice David, I look forward to hearing your thoughts when you have some experience with it, I am sure there are a lot of people thinking about the move to mirrorless.

I don't think that's correct, Martin Bailey has a video of his EOS R with a 100-400mk II L EF lens + 2x teleconverter still able to auto focus at f11 https://martinbaileyphotography.com/2019/08/31/autofocus-with-extenders-on-mirrorless-cameras-podcast-674/

Hi David, I'd strongly advise you to try a mirrorless camera before buying, despite the many advantages of mirrorless cameras an EVF is not for everyone. If you can get on with the EVF then it's mirrorless all the way. Other than that, the R and 5DIV have the same 30 megapixel sensor so should have broadly similar performance. The 5DIV has the usual canon ergonomics and would be instantly familiar from your old 5D, the R has the touch-bar that nearly everyone one hates! The 5DIV is currently way overpriced if you are buying new (similar price to the R6), the R is around 1K cheaper at Wex just now, used prices are a bit closer but 5DIV still too pricey

Not much Astro dark for me at this time of year so no more DSO's until September so it's great to have quality data to work with. I decided to avoid my usual Pixinsight workflow to challenge myself using APP & Photoshop only (Processing details below image). Astro Pixel Processor Combine L-RGB Remove light pollution Calibrate background Calibrate star colours Export to Photoshop Multiple small stretches with curves to get a good starting point for nebulosity work Export Starnet++ (required a low stride value) Back to Photoshop Multiple rounds of copy layer, curves, mask (I use Lumi32), copy merged to new layer High pass filter on main nebula Topaz DeNoise on darker parts of image Combine nebula & stars Adjust colour and saturation to taste (using Camera Raw) Flatten and export

Cheers Dave, It Does have a bonfire look about it doesn't it. I have enough frames spread over an hour to try an animation (assuming there is any movement in the prom). Rob.

Thanks Luke, I usually stop down the 120 to 100mm but this was early enough that the seeing was reasonably stable (was also using a 2" Baader UV/IR cut filter). Rob.

Cracking Solar Prominence this morning with a nice filament pointing the way. Captured with the 120mm scope, Quark and ASI174MM camera. A bit closer and pushed a bit more for the Prom (Updated). New - AR2817 as it was disappearing over the limb.

Hi Scotty, It's the way everyone starts off (myself included) but as you gain experience you will want to have more control and refinement over the stretching as every image differs. You should download the excellent data provided by IKO for practice with high quality images, and check out people's submissions as a lot of them will outline their workflow. Rob.

Hi Scotty I can't say I have any fixed workflow (and most of my stuff is narrowband rather than LRGB) but it was along the lines of: Stacked in APP (I prefer APP when I have data from multiple sessions) Lum Dynamic crop DBE TGVDenoise HistogramTransformation (multiple small stretches) RGB (each channel) Dynamic crop DBE ChannelCombination (to produce an RGB image) PhotometricColorCalibration HistogramTransformation (multiple small stretches) Curves LRGBCombination -> now I have LRGB image LocalHistogramEqualization Export to Photoshop Adjust contrast, colour and saturation to taste I recommend checking out Chris Woodhouse and Adam Block on YouTube for some great Pixinsight tutorials and also Chuck's astrophotography Good luck. Rob.

With a mono camera a Luminance filter is used for detail / sharpness and RGB for colour. Typically if you have light pollution you would use an LP filter for your Lum.

End of the season for me as Astro dark is getting too short so I thought I'd end with Markarians chain. The weather has been awful this season but the last month has had quite a few good nights (where were they when I had more than 12 hours of astro darkness per night!) ED80 + 0.85x reducer on an ED6-R Pro, ASI1600MM camera and Astronomik LRGB filters, Bortle 6/7 skies 3 hours Lum and around 1.5 hours for each RGB filter. I have added an annotated (via pixinsight) image to highlight the fantastic richness of this target