any tips for white light imaging first attempt ?

[leemanley]

Morning all, have acquired some film to make a solar filter for my scope through my astronomy club, http://www.midcheshireastro.co.uk am going to make it this morning.
I'm planning on using the canon at prime focus first then I'll bung the guidecam on for some close-ups.
Would I be correct in thinking that in the case of the dslr I should treat it like the moon, ie, exposure wise and iso ?
I'm just fishing for any ideas that might save me a bit of time when I get out.
Also been thinking about how I would track the sun with my mount, no stars = no alignment, or is it just a case of tweaking to keep it in frame ?
Thanks for any suggestions, Lee
 

[Steve Ward]

Your best place to start is right here .... http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/153712-simple-white-light-solar-imaging/

Happy hunting ... 

[leemanley]

Perfect, thanks Steve.
Love your work by the way !

[Leveye]

I find the camera settings when taking pictures of the sun and moon with a dslr to be quite the same they are both so  very bright. First i always always use live view to look at anything!! Start at iso 100 and 1/250th to begin with. Image for very short periods for the sensor can still heat up by either covering up the front of the scope or pointing it away from the sun. I track my hand using a vixen porta 2 tripod with alt and az control dials adjusting for movement as necessary.

[Steve Ward]

     "  Image for very short periods for the sensor can still heat up "

I disagree strongly with this statement ...   

I regularly have my camera , either the 1000D or the SPC900NC pointed at and filming the Sun for anything up to 3 hours with no heating of either sensor , and have done the same sort of stint visually with no warming effect on the eyeball ... 

[Bizibilder]

With DSLR imaging quite "rough" polar alignment will be quite good enough - you may need to "tweak" in RA and Dec but not too often.  You don't say which scope you intend to use - I would suggest the ED80 with the 3x barlow will give you a decent image size on the DSLR chip.  If your images are "all over the place" then a swift run through PIPP (freeware) will centre and crop them for you (always good to have an escape route!!).  I strongly suggest you stack around 100 frames in Registax 5 (not 6!!) - as it is much easier to use.

I too have used my set-up for very long sessions with absolutely no heating up of the sensor.

[Mr TamiyaCowboy]

With DSLR imaging quite "rough" polar alignment will be quite good enough - you may need to "tweak" in RA and Dec but not too often.  You don't say which scope you intend to use - I would suggest the ED80 with the 3x barlow will give you a decent image size on the DSLR chip.  If your images are "all over the place" then a swift run through PIPP (freeware) will centre and crop them for you (always good to have an escape route!!).  I strongly suggest you stack around 100 frames in Registax 5 (not 6!!) - as it is much easier to use.

I too have used my set-up for very long sessions with absolutely no heating up of the sensor.

this above. 

But Do Not expect results first of the bat.  Rodger and the guys have been plugging away

at white light imaging for a good while and have tuned there kit to perfection.

websites can be very helpful, http://www.solen.info/solar/ This one is very useful.

it shows you the whole disk and numbers the sunspots and activity areas. 

Give you the view/photographer a ref based image to use for target hunting. 

Have fun and STAY SAFE  .......  ALWAYS hold your filter up to the sun first and 

check for an small pin holes in your filter, before you even install onto telescope.

[leemanley]

Thanks for the replies, I managed to capture about 10 mins worth of images with the 200PDS at prime with the 550d inbetween the thick hazy clouds this aft. I'm in the middle of making dinner so cant post the results just yet but, I am really really pleased with the images (including sunspots !), I didnt realise how awkward it could be to actually find the damn thing !
Will post up some shots in a bit
Thanks Lee