AR2546: getting better!

[Iainp]

That's me getting better, not the sunspot, which has been and continues to be consistently fantastic  .  It's great to have such a big active spot to experiment with as I learn and relearn solar imaging, now with a decent camera.  Reading on this forum last night,  I discovered imPPG.  Wow! what a superb resource!  I was using AS!2 then moving to Registax for wavelets , but first impressions are that imPPG is giving me even better results, so today I've been going straight from AS!2 to imPPG, then into GIMP for final contrast adjustment,  high pass filter and colouring.    Here's one result from this morning; not perfect, and could still be sharper, but a big improvement already, though I say so myself...    Now I need to learn to increase contrast without destroying detail.  One problem I'm having is that as I play around with curves and levels to increase contrast,  the centre of the spot gets artificially bloated. Any advice on avoiding this ? Thanks. It's not too bad in this one but still apparent.  

Iain 

 

 

[David Smith]

Good shot Ian. ImPPG is a great piece of kit, I use it for everything but white light now.

[Stub Mandrel]

Have you tried Astra with its multi-scale contrast?

 

[Davey-T]

Nicely done Ian, I tend just to have a fiddle with shadows and highlights in P'Shop rather than curves and levels.

Dave

[Iainp]

Thanks guys. Dave: shadows and highlights, that's new for me. I don't have Photoshop at the moment so will dig around in GIMP, which presumably has the same features. Neil I hadn't heard of Astra either. Looking online it looks great. I'll go for the Astra Image Plus package, which seems to be the best one for non-photoshop users, unless you recommend one of the other packages? Cheers, Iain 

[laudropb]

Very  nice image Ian

[Stub Mandrel]

I have Astra Plus which I am quite leased with,

[Iainp]

Neil, I now have Astra Plus which I'm absolutely ecstatic with!  I'm just about to post a Before and After comparison as a new post. Thank you so much. Iain 

[Pete Presland]

Fine close up.