First Solar photo(:

[Azure]

Last year I made a solar filter to see the transit of Venus (unfortunately the weather had other ideas) However, seeing the weather today, I dug out my solar filter from last year, and after checking it was in good condition, decided to try it out for imaging.

Here's my first photo - no stacking or anything, just a try out.

Never tried solar astronomy before, but I'm finding it more interesting then I thought I would! I hope to start getting better images (but we all know what the weather can be like...)

[JamesF]

That's a very nice single frame image. I think you might have a couple of dust bunnies, but (ahem) who doesn't? Taking 100 images or so and stacking the best ones will give you even more detail if you want to go that far.

James

[Azure]

Haha yeah there are some smudges/dust and I think they're from the filter, but I'm hesitant to clean it because I don't want to damage the baader film ):

Hmm so would I just stack RAWS like I would with a DSO photo then? I had a look at your recent photo, amazing detail - I want to try and get a series of photos to show the changing face of the Sun, that'd be cool! (or hot, rather)

[JamesF]

Very similar to the way you'd work with DSS, yes. I use Registax v6 for stacking solar images, but Registax doesn't like RAW files, so I convert them to TIFF with PIPP first. PIPP can also do useful things such as crop the image down to get rid of "dead" space, centre the image in the frame, drop frames where the image isn't fully on the frame and reorder the frames by quality to put the worst ones last. When I load the images in to Registax I look at the later ones and just don't bother loading those that have cloud or other defects.

James

[Azure]

Ah okay, cheers for the heads up! I'll definitely have a go at it - It'll be nice not to just lock up the scope for the whole summer like usual

[JamesF]

Dear me no, there's no good reason for doing that

James

[Bizibilder]

An exellent image. You may find this: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/153712-simple-white-light-solar-imaging/ useful. Modesty forbids me from mentioning who wrote it .

[Azure]

Oh wow, awesome guide! I never thought I'd look forward to using my scope at night and day haha

Now if only there was an astronomy activity that involved clouds...

[Bizibilder]

Google "Cloud appreciation society"

[Azure]

Oh my, the best bit is that they have a section titled 'How to spot clouds'

[JamesF]

Oh my, the best bit is that they have a section titled 'How to spot clouds'

It's quite tough when they all blend into each other

James

[markt]

Good result!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very good first effort! You picked a good day to start too. Lots of detail to be captured

[Azure]

Thanks! Yes, just one more reason to love this weather

[sologuitarist61]

That is first class from a single image

[Montana]

Excellent start, you are already hooked I see

Alexandra