The Sun - 01 Jan 2013

[David Smith]

Well here is my effort for today. 127 frames stacked and then tweaked a little.

http://www.flickr.co...tbf/8332637743/

Much better conditions today, best I have seen in a long time. Even managed to get the PST out and grab some avi's with my webcam. Usually first sign of the PST coming out brings the clouds rushing back!

[DrRobin]

Great start to the new year. Nice capture, long may it continue.

[Montana]

Well done! a super WL I'm looking forward to the PST shots

Alexandra

[Bizibilder]

Very nice shot - nice to start the year with clear skies.

[David Smith]

Well done! a super WL I'm looking forward to the PST shots

Ha Ha, think they may be some time away yet. This was the first time I have even been able to get something recognisable on the screen, let alone something presentable! With the kit I am using at the minute it is a constant battle to keep the sun in the field of view whilst trying to see the screen whilst trying to focus whilst trying to find the right settings for the webcam!!!!! All good fun but it's not doing anything for my craving for a better mount!

Have to say it is nice to see the forum alive with talk of what people are seeing today, rather than moaning about the weather!

[Steve Ward]

[Stephen Green]

A very nice image

Stephen

[David Smith]

Had a play with the PST avi's that I captured this morning (mentioned above). Registax would not even open them, I think the avi codec my Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000 uses is a bit old now. So had to see if I could get something else to do the job. I don't use a Windows system so it had to be something I could run either under Wine or natively in Linux. Tried R6 but got the same result as R5. Tried AviStack but this failed to install under wine. Eventually got AutoStakkert 2 to work under wine, found a Youtube tutorial and away we go.

Now bear in mind this is the first time I have actually gotten anything from the Webcam with the PST (had to hack several millimeters off the home made nosepiece to get it to focus) and therefore this is very rough image. Having said that I am quite please that I got anything out of the session. It's a proof of concept if nothing else and I now have an idea of what settings I should use for the webcam in wxastrocapture.

The 2 stacked images were processed in Registax 5 using Wavelets and with different amounts applied. I have lots to learn about processing these images!

Anyone has any thoughts / guidance for me I would be very greatful.

[DrRobin]

Nice capture of the proms David. To get focus with most cameras you either have to shave off a few mm or use a Barlow lens screwed in to the end of the camera nosepiece, so I see you opted for the first method.

The proms are nice, so it looks like you might have over exposed a little, unless you took one capture for the surface detail and a second for the proms, this is what most people have to do. Try taking two pictures, one with the exposure turned down for the surface detail and the second turned up to show the proms and then combined in post processing.

Colour cameras are usually not the best for PSTs as you loose one third of the detail (Ha is only in red spectrum) but worse than that the colour bleeds across to the other colours and can cause a slight blurring, but if that is all you have got then keep trying.

There is another problem with colour cameras, the Bayer matrix appears to cause diffraction rings with the Etalon, although I can't see any on your pictures, so you may be lucky.

PDAs regards drivers, I usually find that I have to connect the camera in to both the PC I use for capture and if it is different in to the PC used for stacking. Not sure if you used two PCs or if you did the capture under Linux and the stacking under Windows (WINE)?

If you did try connecting the camera under WINE and install the Windows drivers, that should then let you use Registax.

I have used Registax and AS2!, but since I am much more familiar with Registax I am no real expert on AS2!, but folk who use it do seem to get good results.

As regards settings, is there a histogram of exposure meter in wxastrocapture? If there is try for around 80% exposure for the surface detail and over expose around 125 to 159% for the proms. Sometimes the proms are really faint and you need to up the exposure even more.

Hope this gives you a few pointers, keep posting and with practise you will get there, it is what everyone has to do, keep trying until everything clicks.

[David Smith]

Robin

Thanks very much for that. All I need now is some more clear skies to have another go.

I recorded a couple of avi's with different exposure settings to try to capture both surface detail and proms but I had trouble stacking the other avi. Will have another go later.

I use a laptop for capture and then the family desktop for processing. Both are Ubuntu boxes but Registax runs fine through wine and at the moment I am happy using GIMP for post processing. The laptop is dual boot and has an old SP1 Windows XP install under which I can use the original Logitech software, but I found wxastrocapture much more user friendly. Wxastrocapture does have a histogram so your suggested exposures will be very useful.

[Montana]

I think you captured the prominence very well indeed!! there is great structure and detail there well done

When you said under wine I thought it worked after you had had a bottle of wine

Alexandra

[David Smith]

That does help too

[scoobee]

liking the images, well-done