First Solar Attempt

[Aussie Dave]

Had a few hours free this afternoon so I attempted some solar images. All images taken with the Celestron Nexstar 8i with white light filter.

First image was taken with the Nikon D3100 and basic editing in PaintDotNet with colour added.

 

I had little success with the Nikon with exposure or clarity so I didn't go any further with it.

Next I tried afocal with a Celestron 32mm EP, Fujifilm 10mp compact camera and added a polarising filter and an orange filter with slightly better results.

I did basic image editing in PDN to bring out the sun spots from the photo above

 

The next photo is similar taken 5 seconds after the previous afocal photo. Below it, it has 2 slightly different image edits in PDN to bring out the sun spots.

 

All comments welcome both good and bad. I really have no idea how to process single solar shots. For the 2 similar original shots I have 3 different results. I did try RS6 and AS!2 on multiple similar looking shots but both programs spat the dummy with my solar efforts.

Could someone tell me the best way to go about pre- processing, software and editing.

Cheers

Dave.

[xtreemchaos]

great first go mate and welcome to the lightside Dave. thanks for sharing   charl.

[Aussie Dave]

Thanks Charl but I really do like the dark side!

I found the answer to my question... it was at the top of the Solar Imaging forum page

 

It looks like another big step up to master this, not that I've mastered much of anything else yet

[Davey-T]

At least you should get more Sun than us in the UK to practice on

Dave

[Aussie Dave]

haha, true Dave and practice I need a lot of.

It wasn't too hot today, under 30 degrees but I still worked up a sweat sitting in the sun for about an hour, heating me up and the gear.

[David Smith]

Great start Dave, some nice images.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice start, with some good detail captured

[laudropb]

Very nice first attempt.

[Dave Smith]

Welcome to the light side Dave. That's a pretty good first effort.

 

Dave

[paulastro]

Excellent start to your Solar adventures Dave.  With all that sunshine you get, I'm sure you'll come on in leaps and bounds.  I smiled when I read in your post about the baking sunshine you had to put up with, my session this morning  followed a few hours of steady snow fall. 

[Aussie Dave]

3 hours ago, Dave Smith said:

Welcome to the light side Dave. That's a pretty good first effort.

 

Dave

Thanks Dave but I'm just passing through, there's too many goodies to be had on the dark side

 

48 minutes ago, paulastro said:

Excellent start to your Solar adventures Dave.  With all that sunshine you get, I'm sure you'll come on in leaps and bounds.  I smiled when I read in your post about the baking sunshine you had to put up with, my session this morning  followed a few hours of steady snow fall. 

Cheers Paul, it'll be our turn next with poor weather in a couple of months. Glad we don't get snow though, you can keep that

[Pete Presland]

Fabulous start to your solar imaging, welcome to the light side of imaging!

[Montana]

A great first attempt, loads of details in the active regions, well done

Alexandra