Well I tried (Mercury transit 11/11/19)

[hazza001]

Evening all,

So despite the fact my power tank died out on me so early that I missed the best part of the day (weather here got much better later in the day... grr!) and with the limited knowledge in taking/creating solar images this means a great deal to me  

I missed both the venus transits   and the last mercury transit, so to even witness this one and be able to share the experience with my family was really rewarding.

I know this image isn't great (eww neuton rings) but out of the 5min of clips I took I ended up cutting it down to about 3 seconds where there were no clouds in the video, I then ran it through autostackert, wavlets in registax, then a quick bout with photoshop and that was it.

Im still not entirely confident Im using the Daystar solar sout properly I havent been able to see much contrast in the surface I know you can adjust it with the dial but if im honest im not 100% sure what it does, I know its a blue shift red shift kind of deal but the all the manual says is about turning clockwise if you have a heavy camera mounted as the image can become blueshifted.

The ZWO Asi120 performed admirably (I just need to get a tilt adapter to banish thoes rings) and I have no quibbles with SharpCap, easy peasy.

I also still have soooo much to learn when it comes to the software side with stacking, wavlets, curves and levels and what to use when.  hopefuly I'll be a little more in the know when the next transit happens

Anyway this was my little effort 

please let me know what you think and what I can do to improve

Thanks

 

Harry

 

[David Smith]

Good catch. Problem at the moment is that the Sun is so quiet across the spectrum that contrast in any light is hard to come by. Aside from the Newton Rings surface contrast looks comparable to what I would have expected on a good day from my PST a while back. Persevere and you will get there.

[Pete Presland]

Nice capture at least you got something, despite the problems.