My new Solar Filter and First Solar Image 28-4-12

[ArmyAirForce]

I spent all afternoon making a solar filter for the scope, then the sun went in!! It did come out again, and I got some observing and photos. I'm a little paranoid about the fragility of the Baader Solar Film, so I made this wooden frame with pivoting covers to protect the film when not in use.

The wooden shield around the finderscope allows sighting on the sun without the light in your face.

The images I took were dodging between the clouds, and several images show the veil of mist across the disc.

Real image

False colour

[Viv]

That's a great bit of DIY work - nice one !

[Steve Ward]

Great start fella ,

I've recently started the same game and find that taking multiple shots (50 or so) and then stacking them in Registax , (only just realised you can do single frames as well as AVI's,) can yield some really crisp detail.

Have fun.

[ArmyAirForce]

I did take a number of shots, but not sure how many I can stack because of the number which had significant amounts of cloud cover! Still, I'm very pleased to get a half decent shot straight away.

[Steve Ward]

Should be OK I think provided target doesn't jump around too much, just delete dodgy shots and try the "centre of gravity" option in the Align box. Think thats what I did last time.

Been so long without sun its o job to remember.

[ArmyAirForce]

We've had so much rain recently I haven't been out. When I went out to the garden today, I noticed a bucket which was almost full of water, so we must have had around 10 inches of rain in the last ten to fourteen days.

[sologuitarist61]

Strange but I prefer the false colour image

Nice work with the filter holders though

[MorningMajor]

Just so jealous that you can actually see the sun at the moment!

[Crunchard]

What an excellent piece of work.

I use my ST80 to image the sun, and love the idea of the extra wide sun defence screen to help with spotting

[Rattler]

That's a brilliant piece of work mate.

[Bizibilder]

Exellent bit of DIY - I like the "finder shield" idea. If you have multiple images (even with a few cloudy bits) try stacking them anyway - I think you'll be impressed with the results.

[Montana]

Tremendous handy work, what a clever idea! great images too, can't wait for the next! I wish it would stop raining too, just for a while

Alexandra

[ArmyAirForce]

I did some stacking late last night, and brought out a little more detail.