Prominence - 30 July 2020

[x6gas]

Hi all,

Inspired by the great StarGazine talk by Gary Palmer, I bought a Quark Chromosphere from FLO and have been taking my first, somewhat shaky, steps in Ha imaging of the sun.  I've got a lot to learn.  This is the second Ha image I've processed and the first I have posted.

Was really thrilled to see this big prominence on Friday and managed to capture a couple of videos.  Interestingly (to me anyway) the image was much more stable at around 18:30BST than it was earlier in the day despite the light having more atmosphere to traverse - is this common?  I'd read that things can be more stable first thing in the morning as the air has not yet become so heated which makes sense...

So this image is a composite (one video for the chromosphere, one for the prom) of the best 200 frames of 1000, stacked in AS!3, wavelet sharpening in RegiStax6, and final processing in PS.  I used a mixture of techniques described by Gary Palmer and Marty Wise ( @MalVeauX ) and found both extremely helpful so thanks guys.

TS90 CF apo, Baader 7.5nm filter, Quark Chromo, Celestron Skyris 236M

I left plenty of orange in the background sky deliberately, but I am new to this so critique, comments and suggestions to help me improve most appreciated.

Cheers, Ian

[MarkAR]

Superb prom, looks great to me.

[Pete Presland]

Very nice Prom

[Rusted]

Congratulations! Well done Ian!

Early morning and early evening are usually steadiest.
Morning I can easily understand. Evening, much less so.
There can be certain times of day for better seeing depending largely on your locality.
Avoid hot roofs, roads, sheds, garages, observatories and other buildings "under" the sun.

First thing after local sunrise doesn't usually work for me. It may for you.
So I sit there browsing, while monitoring the image until it improves.
Morning coffee is timed to coincide with the sudden deterioration of the earlier seeing.
Tea in the later afternoon when the sun hits the trees.
Patience in researching local seeing conditions can be rewarding.
Though no two days are exactly alike.

Time your captures to coincide with steady moments. Anticipation is a learned skill.
Try keeping your videos quite short. Say 500 frames and stack only a modest number.
75 frames stacked from 500 works for me. I am passing on this advice from other imagers.
Previously I tried larger numbers of frames and stacking and was more often disappointed.

[x6gas]

Very many thanks Mark and Pete and huge thanks for the tips @Rusted.  I'm still not sure if the Quark is working as it should but despite very hot weather (which I guess is also appalling for seeing) it's actually been pretty cloudy here... but those are great tips and I'll bear that all in mind.

I'm just making an extension tube on the lathe so that I can dispense with the diagonal and have one less surface in the image train.  Also Gary Palmer made the point that it keeps the camera out of the sun which I guess isn't a bad thing...

Thanks again.  I am encouraged by my first couple of attempts!

Cheers, Ian

[callisto]

Fantastic image 👍...........I want a Quark Chromosphere now 

 

Mark

[x6gas]

17 hours ago, callisto said:

Fantastic image 👍...........I want a Quark Chromosphere now 

 

Mark

Thanks Mark.  I've only managed to use the Quark twice so far and I'm not confident I have it working optimally yet but it's promising.  It is certainly a thrill to see a big prominence... and I'm looking forward to improving.  Thanks for the encouragement.