My first Images with the Daystar Solar Scout

[hazza001]

Evening all,

I've wanted a solar scope for the longest time so I recently took the plunge and bought the Daystar Solar Scout SS60, It arrived maybe a week or so ago and its been cloudy nearly every day since (always the way with new astro gear!!!) 

Well the clouds parted for a while yesterday so I fired it up and took a few "snaps"

I was using my Nikon D3300 with a 2X barlow. at first all I saw was a red ball.... not too interesting then I fiddled around with the settings and got this... (I have editied slightly by bumping up the contrast but that was it!)

I still have alot to learn but its getting there I managed to capture some detail texture(?) in the surface and some prominence detail

I then tried taking a video then stack and prosess in registax which didnt turn out so great

I got the Proms, but the disk is very washed out, I struggled here because the camera recorded in MOV. file which I had to convert to an avi. before registax would even look at it.

Not as good as the first one (I think it was more luck than anything else!!) plus I had my iso setting a bit high, the video had lots of noise and I didn't take a reference frame (might of helped?) Alot of faf for not much reward 😂

 

From the first few hours I've had with the scope I really enjoy using it, the only thing I struggled with was achiving focus as I only had the disk to focus on which was supprisingly tricky.

I'm hoping for a bit more practice before the 11th 😁

 

Let me know what you think and if you have any tips or tricks I'm all ears

 

Harry

 

 

[Nigella Bryant]

Hi Harry, try and get hold of a mono cmos camera like the zwo asi120mm. It's the cheapest way to go. I don't know much about your scope but attached is an image taken with my lunt 60mm single stack so I think there's a steep learning curve too with your scope so keep at it. 

[hazza001]

Funny you say that I should be getting a delivery of that very camera tomorrow 😁

That image is stunning! 

Yes lots to learn especially on software side of it and just getting to know the scope in general. 

Harry

[Nigella Bryant]

Yeah, I always use my mono asi120mm and also a 0.5 reducer to give me full disk. I use autostakker3 to stack @ 30% the image is then transfered to Imppg which is specially designed for solar imaging processing. All are freeware. I use photoshop to merge and colour. I'm new to this to and only got my scope this summer. Transit of mercury is a must on the 11th November weather permitting of course. Watch your focus too,  gain, gamma, and exposure, it will be easier using sharpcap for capture with the zwo asi120mm. You need to capture one for the surface details and then another with increased brightness for prominences and merge the two after processing. 

 

Edited November 5, 2019 by Nigella Bryant
Image's added

[GreatAttractor]

1 hour ago, Nigella Bryant said:

You need to capture one for the surface details and then another with increased brightness for prominences and merge the two after processing. 

To underline dim prominences, indeed it's best to combine two exposures. But it's not absolutely necessary if the prominences are bright; for example, in the right image below (4-pane mosaic made with Lunt 50), all that was needed was to gently "lift" the tone curve at the dark end (performed in ImPPG):

 

[Nigella Bryant]

http://brierleyhillsolar.blogspot.co.uk/

The above link has plenty of information on solar observing. 

[matt_baker]

2 hours ago, Nigella Bryant said:

Yeah, I always use my mono asi120mm and also a 0.5 reducer to give me full disk. I use autostakker3 to stack @ 30% the image is then transfered to Imppg which is specially designed for solar imaging processing. All are freeware. I use photoshop to merge and colour. I'm new to this to and only got my scope this summer. Transit of mercury is a must on the 11th November weather permitting of course. Watch your focus too,  gain, gamma, and exposure, it will be easier using sharpcap for capture with the zwo asi120mm. You need to capture one for the surface details and then another with increased brightness for prominences and merge the two after processing. 

 

What typical gain, exposure and white balance do you use with your 120mm?

[hazza001]

Some great advice thankyou  I've got the imaging tutorials up and will make my way through them.

I actually ordered a .5 focal reducer with the camera so I can get a full disk image, glad im getting some sort of idea on what I need  

They are great images, really looking forward to using the mono camera and pick out a bit more detail, just need to work on my focus.

Harry

[Nigella Bryant]

1 hour ago, matt_baker said:

What typical gain, exposure and white balance do you use with your 120mm?

To be honest I've never taken any notice of numbers but just looked at the image on screen and adjusted the sliders until I get what I think is a good image to take.