Raw solar images to help visual observers?

[Highburymark]

I’ve never done any astro imaging. Visual only, day and night - though I am constantly amazed at the achievements of many solar imagers on SGL and elsewhere. But often those beautifully processed pics showing sharp and high contrast surface features like filaments don’t bear much relation to the view through the eyepiece - and this can sometimes lead to disappointment among first time observers. So I was wondering, is there a resource/website where newcomers to the hobby could see example raw shots of the Sun alongside the final, processed images? Ideally - quality-wise - these shots would be somewhere in the middle of the hundreds of images which would be sorted and stacked during processing. As long as they represented the eyepiece view reasonably closely. It would also be incredibly useful to see how different scopes and filters compare with each other. Considering the price of much of this equipment, there’s not much out there for the uninitiated to learn from, so they know what to expect. Buying an ha scope or filter is still something of a leap of faith. Of course that’s partly inevitable with such technology - every system is different. But that would seem to make such a resource even more valuable. 

[xtreemchaos]

its not as easy as that Mark, many a day in the year imagers have to stax to get a useful image, the eye is much better when it comes single images in my view. my images are most days are only staxed and a bit of contrast and brightness and cropped  with the goal of as little processing as I can get away with but its not to everybodys taste but I like it, im not into polishing images as thay can take a lot away mate. charl.

[Davey-T]

What we could do is post the video which gives a good idea of the eyepiece view and the finished image to show result of processing, looking at some videos it's a miracle  that the software can produce a usable image 😂

Dave

[Highburymark]

34 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

its not as easy as that Mark, many a day in the year imagers have to stax to get a useful image, the eye is much better when it comes single images in my view. my images are most days are only staxed and a bit of contrast and brightness and cropped  with the goal of as little processing as I can get away with but its not to everybodys taste but I like it, im not into polishing images as thay can take a lot away mate. charl.

That’s interesting - thanks charl. I presume it’s easier to do less processing and still get decent images from proms rather than surface features like filaments?

[xtreemchaos]

in a ideal situ there are great number of good frames which would make great single shots but that's maybe as little as 4-8 days a year that conditions get that good . gong is a good comparison thay produce a image a minute which is remarkable but its not very often you would see a disc anywhere near as good as Steves or otheirs on here.  yes proms are easyer than surface shots because there a lot brighter. charl

Edited September 23, 2019 by xtreemchaos

[Highburymark]

28 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

What we could do is post the video which gives a good idea of the eyepiece view and the finished image to show result of processing, looking at some videos it's a miracle  that the software can produce a usable image 😂

Dave

That would be interesting Dave. Although I’ve got 5 years’ experience of solar observing, I realise I know so little about the imaging process - and about other ha scopes and filters.

I’ve got a double stacked Lunt 60 - excellent all-round scope, mostly used for full disc views, sharp surface detail and proms up to 75x. And a quark - excellent for proms with 4” frac up to 100x and beyond, but poor surface detail - particularly at the high mags which quark provides. Prior to this I also had an LS50. But I’d also like to get an idea of what other equipment is capable of - from PST and PST mods up to Solar Spectrum etc. 

[xtreemchaos]

solar imaging is akin to juggling ferrets while making rattatooi with lemons being rubbed in both eyes 😀

humor is the the path from sadness into joy with the darn cloud today. sorry about my spelling, my word blindness is quite bad at the mo. charl.
 

[Peter Drew]

I get prom details as good if not better than imagers during excellent seeing but surface and filament details fall short. This could be offset by double stacking but the proms would suffer. I like proms.    😀 

[Rusted]

3 hours ago, Davey-T said:

What we could do is post the video which gives a good idea of the eyepiece view and the finished image to show result of processing, looking at some videos it's a miracle  that the software can produce a usable image 😂

Dave

My thoughts exactly! Usually on a daily basis.

I find the solar surface in H-a, in real life, is like watching pink frog spawn.
Stills would have to be very lucky to capture what is seen fleetingly with the eye during any video capture. 
I'm talking about a greatly enlarged view on a decent high res. monitor here. Visual is very different. 

Here's a live video I took to show exactly how I see the computer screen.
I was suffering from a nuisance veiling effect at the time. If you look behind the veil then that is my live H-a.
6" f/8 PST modified refractor using a ZWO120MC camera. Real aperture something like 120mm f10.
I am deliberately moving the telescope around with the drives to emphasise the foreground veiling.

 

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by Rusted

[Highburymark]

5 hours ago, Peter Drew said:

I get prom details as good if not better than imagers during excellent seeing but surface and filament details fall short. This could be offset by double stacking but the proms would suffer. I like proms.    😀 

Have to say my Quark gets pretty close too, but not quite at your magnifications Peter.   Surface details poor but who cares when the proms are so good.

[Peter Drew]

10 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

Have to say my Quark gets pretty close too, but not quite at your magnifications Peter.   Surface details poor but who cares when the proms are so good.

I have to qualify my previous remark about surface detail. The general surface texture is not so good visually as good images, I can't quite get the feathery look to the swirls but when there is considerable disturbance in an active area (remember those?) then the visual detail is awesome.      😀

[xtreemchaos]

I get quite good surface details with my quark, do you tune the surface in Mark, its 2clicks right on mine, with proms being at the top or maybe 2 clicks left depending on the seeing. charl.

[Davey-T]

Good post here from Alexandra.

I've had a few Quarks for one reason or another but none achieved those extremes when tuning.

Dave

 

 

[Highburymark]

In response to both charl and Dave’s previous two posts, I’ve tested my Quark at length - at every tuning position in 100mm and 85mm refractors. I’ve binoviewed the Quark. Tried polarising filter. I’ve even tried double stacking with the LS60 (so far disappointing). It’s just the wrong piece of mica to bring out surface detail, but I can’t complain. Proms are spectacular and I’m lucky to have the LS60 for when the surface gets active again. It’s a chromosphere model by the way. 

[Moonshane]

In my. 100mm pst mod with binos I get visual images far sharper than the video both of proms and disk. I usually use 68 or about 68-85x occasionally 115x which is right in ratio for aperture re Peter's 150mm.

[Davey-T]

11 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

In response to both charl and Dave’s previous two posts, I’ve tested my Quark at length - at every tuning position in 100mm and 85mm refractors. I’ve binoviewed the Quark. Tried polarising filter. I’ve even tried double stacking with the LS60 (so far disappointing). It’s just the wrong piece of mica to bring out surface detail, but I can’t complain. Proms are spectacular and I’m lucky to have the LS60 for when the surface gets active again. It’s a chromosphere model by the way. 

I've looked through a few Quarks and can say that they are extremely variable which is at odds with claims made by Daystar, the one I had originally was excellent others have been mediocre, as there seems to be no production benchmark it's difficult to tell what is acceptable to Daystar QC, they quote minimum, maximum ? bandpass figures but I have seen less than half a dozen that produce exceptional images.

Dave

Edited September 23, 2019 by Davey-T

[xtreemchaos]

truly its the one down fall with quarks, this luck of the draw thingy we get across the board is very troublesum and its wrong when spending so much money and even if thay manage it fix them all = in the future its going to stop in our minds for a long time. its shady at the least. if it was my Quark Mark id contact daystar and see if thay could sort something out, its not on not getting decent surface details in my view. charl.

Edited September 24, 2019 by xtreemchaos

[Rusted]

The same held true with Meade PST etalons.
Do Daystar assemble their instruments in Mexico using cheap labour?
Optics seems to be going the way of hifi. If you can't tell the difference it must be your own ears/eyes.
I prefer <cough> blind testing but doubt that would go down well with solar enthusiasts.

[xtreemchaos]

as far as I know Quarks are made and put together and "tested" in the daystar factory in The USA.

[Davey-T]

5 hours ago, xtreemchaos said:

as far as I know Quarks are made and put together and "tested" in the daystar factory in The USA.

I'm interested in how they're tested, I guess they test the individual mica components somehow but doubt if they actually view the Sun  through them in a real life test.

Dave

[xtreemchaos]

I don't know Dave, ive a hunch that thay only test a few out of every batch othierwise thay would be knowingly selling faulty goods and we all know thay wouldn't do that don't we 😀😉.

[Davey-T]

They must test all the etalons or whatever to sort out the best ones to use in their more expensive products, although we had a member that purchased one of the $3000 versions that still didn't perform as advertised, the "worst" ones supposedly get used in prom versions but they are still the same price as chromo versions ?

Dave

[Rusted]

As an insatiable PST modder...

I know my place.

[xtreemchaos]

I carnt complain with mine Dave, as you know I got a try before buy and it ended up being a broken one so it got sent back and got a new one for the nice price of £700 but I feel for all my friends who hasn't been so lucky and it troubles me that its still a game of Russian roullet still !, because at some point ill have to play the game myself because they recommend sending them back for service every 4 to 5 years and ive had mine 3 years in feb. charl.

[Davey-T]

You've done well Charl, I've had 5 returned for repair two replaced with new and still have to psyche myself up to return one once again, I've had to buy a second hand one in the meantime to keep me going 

Dave