White light 15 July

[Astrokev]

First glimpse of the sun in what seems like weeks.

Fortunately sun spot 1520 is still putting on a good show before it disappears behind the limb.

Both images are from the same Registax composite of 20 RAW shots taken through 420mm telephoto on my trusty D300, with slighhtly different processing in Photoshop. Can't decide which I prefer. The first is more pleasing on the eye I think, but the second shows slightly more detail in the penumbral regions but perhaps suffers from a bit more noise. I'd be interested in what folks out there think.

Thanks for looking.

[JamieW]

That's a tough call, I think I prefer number 2. Just.

Glad you got to see some sun.

[scoobee]

liking both pictures but two has the edge, i am just starting to look at solar and thinking about getting a thousand oaks solar filter for my nexstar 4se, sounds daft how did you work out the exposure please.

[Astrokev]

Hi Scoobee

Trial and error really. I start by taking 3 or 4 shots at a range of exposures through Baader solar film, then simply select what I think is best for the main series of 20-30 shots. From these I select the best 20, crop then stack.

[Steve Ward]

You want to be aiming for what appears to be an underexposed sub rather than a 'correct' looking one.

You can adjust things after stacking to bring out the detail with histogram stretch etc but if the image is too bright and the detail is burnt out you cannot recover it.

Steve.

P.S. Check out Rogers tutorial here ,

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/153712-simple-white-light-solar-imaging/

[scoobee]

Steve, thanks for the tutorial

[Astrokev]

You want to be aiming for what appears to be an underexposed sub rather than a 'correct' looking one.

You can adjust things after stacking to bring out the detail with histogram stretch etc but if the image is too bright and the detail is burnt out you cannot recover it.

Steve.

P.S. Check out Rogers tutorial here ,

http://stargazerslou...-solar-imaging/

Hi Steve

Yep, that's what I do. The exposures used for these images were 1/5000 at f7.1 , and the subs were intentionally a tad dark so as not to burn out the highlights. Final stack was adjusted in Registax with final tweaking using CS3 blending modes and curves.

[Montana]

I prefer number 1, it looks more natural. It's a great picture by the way

Alexandra