AR1520 making the most of 20 minutes.

[Ant]

The sun came out for 20 minutes today. In the 20 minutes I setup the PST, took some AVI's, packed away just in time for it to rain again.

I've started using AVIStack. It seems quicker than registax5 (can't get anything useable from R6) and seems to give better results.

These images are...

Scope: PST

Camera: DMK21 (with barlow element to get focus)

Software: IC Capture Gain 720, exposure 1/1500(ish)

Stack: AVIStack v2

Process: Registax5 for Wavelets, CS5 for curves, levels, colour and presentation.

Hope you like

[DrRobin]

Hi Ant,

Brilliant photos. Do you expose twice to get surface detail and then over expose to get the prominence? I find that with my PST only the central 1/3 of the frame is correctly exposed, I think some refer to it as the sweet spot, is this what you get?

I can get an Xbox camera to come to focus without a Barlow, but my DFK needs a Barlow. I have a 2x and so far haven't had much luck with that. I am guessing you are using a 2x Barlow lens screwed on to the end of the camera to give around 1.5x?

[GlassWalker]

Looks good, and I shall have to give AVIStack a try too

[Ant]

Hi Ant,

Brilliant photos. Do you expose twice to get surface detail and then over expose to get the prominence? I find that with my PST only the central 1/3 of the frame is correctly exposed, I think some refer to it as the sweet spot, is this what you get?

I can get an Xbox camera to come to focus without a Barlow, but my DFK needs a Barlow. I have a 2x and so far haven't had much luck with that. I am guessing you are using a 2x Barlow lens screwed on to the end of the camera to give around 1.5x?

For the Prom shot on it's own I over exposed the disc, but for the last shot it was all taken in one AVI. I stacked it in AVI Stack, used the wavelets in R5. Once in photoshop I selected the disc and processed that, then inverted the selection and processed (more heavily) the proms.

The edges of the solar disc will always be slightly darker than the centre, but I'm not finding it too hard to exposure correctly with a single FOV.

Yes the DMK needs the 2x barlow (element only) screwed into the 1.25" nosepiece. I would agree that it's around a 1.5x increase. The annoying thing is that the in focus needed is only another mm or two...

I also put in the SX H9 onto the PST and that needed the barlow element as well... but by this time the sun had moved around the house (it was a few hours later) and this was on an undriven EQ1, really not good for this sort of thing. Of course it was only 1 frame every 1 and a half seconds or so. This was 18 frames of the sun passing through the FOV. Not sure I'll bother again without a driven mount...

GlassWalker, definitely give AVI stack a go... but be warned it's much different to Registax.

Ant

[Photosbykev]

Nice work Ant . I've been sat in the sun since 9am while my toy shoots videos of the 1520 sunspot for an animation. Except for a couple of minutes of high hazy cloud and some wind it's a beautiful July day

I'd almost forgotten what they were like

Ps I'd try the DSSR software even if you aren't motorising the mount. The capture software in it is very versatile

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Blame Apple for the typos and me for the content

[DrRobin]

Hi Ant,

Thanks for all of the tips, I am going to give that a go next time we see the sun. It started reasonably good today, but clouded over by 10am. The sun is just starting to appear now, so going to give it a go in a little while, but it's is quite windy here, so might have to be lucky with camera shake. Still mounting a PST on a EQ6 will help with the wind.

I have two barlows and both unscrew but neither is the right thread to go on the end of my DFK, so might have to tape one on. I see that AE make a 1.6x Barlow with a 1.25" thread so will see about buying one of those.

When I look through the PST with the supplied eyepiece the whole of the sun looks evenly illuminated, so think it is the position of the camera too far back from the small aperture in the eyepiece holder which is causing the problem.

[DrRobin]

Hi,

I unscrewed the barlow element from a Televue 3x barlow and since it wouldn't screw into the end of the camera, just dropped it in to the PST eyepiece. I managed to capture the attached picture of sunspot 1520 in gaps in the cloud. Noit in the same league as your images Ant or Kev, but it is my first with a DFK and PST and I am pleased.

The closer the camera to the bottom of the eyepiece holder the bigger the illumination spot so it looks like I definately need that screw in barlow. Nearly the whole of the DFK was illuminated, so looks like that problem is cracked.

I have the dreaded vertical lines, apparently this can be fixed with a firmware revision for the camera, my next line of inquiry.

[Ant]

As your imaging in monochromatic light. There is no point in recording in a colour codec. Try recording in Y800 which is a BW uncompressed format. You never know it might help with the lines.

Send me a PM with your name and address and I'll send you a lens cell for a barlow that I have sitting here. It's only a cheapy one, but it's the same as the one that I'm using. I just happen to have two. This ones does screw into 1.25" nosepiece

I haven't looked at it since (for ever actually), so it may need a clean.

Cheers

Ant

[DrRobin]

Hi Ant,

PM sent, that would be really good. Thanks for all the help, I thought about trying to record in B&W, but when I have recorded planets in B&W by mistake they always seem to lack detail.

I used to have a MS Lifecam, sold it a couple of months ago, but that would fit inside a 1.25" eyepiece holder and achieve focus without a Barlow. They are on special offer at the moment, might be worth a try. I did do a comparison between a Lifecam and a DFK, it wasn't that far behind.

[Montana]

Wonderful pictures!

I also cannot get anything decent from Registax 6, I went back to 5, however I use Autostakkert 2 now for everything as in my testing I think it gives much better results than Avistack. It's always good to experiment

Alexandra

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice indeed.!

[Ant]

Thanks for the comments

Alenxandra, I'll have a look at Autostakkert 2 and see what it can do for the AVI's for the above images. Do you have a link?

Robin, I haven't forgotten - I've just been very very busy this week!

Ant

[astromike]

Ineresting. I used Registax many years ago for planetary stuff and was always pleased with the results. However, when I returned to astrophotography and tried to use Registax 6 I had all kinds of problems. After lots of experimentation I can now get good results most of the time but it is very hard work with Ha images unless the avi is of really good quality with litlle movement. I have tried AviStack and that can work well but is also fooled by poor seeing and vibration in windy conditions.

I have just discovered Autostakkert 2 and have been really impressed with how easy it is to use and how well it does batch processing. Like all of these programmes, it struggles with low quality source material but is faster and generally produces better output than the alternatives.

As mentioned by others, Registax has the by far the best wavelets function and I usually transfer the png files from AviStack into Registax for processing. However, I find that by selecting the 'sharpened image' option in Autostakkert 2 I get images that need little or no further processing. This is certainly the case with the few white light images I have managed to grab between the clouds recently.

Mike

Wonderful pictures!

I also cannot get anything decent from Registax 6, I went back to 5, however I use Autostakkert 2 now for everything as in my testing I think it gives much better results than Avistack. It's always good to experiment

Alexandra

[DrRobin]

Hi,

First try with a DMK21, Ant's Barlow and my PST. The images looked better before I combined them, there was more detail on the surface, but I am getting there.