AR2827 merging over 9 hours - 1/6/2021

[AbsolutelyN]

Time-lapse taken yesterday showing AR2827 starting to merge together. 250PDS, ZWO 178MM and some Baader solar film - over about 9.5 hours every 3 to 6 minutes. 
https://www.astrobin.com/lci71z/

Edited June 3, 2021 by AbsolutelyN

[Stu]

Amazing stuff! Had some great views here visually yesterday evening. Interesting to see the variation in seeing through the time lapse. 

[AbsolutelyN]

2 minutes ago, Stu said:

Amazing stuff! Had some great views here visually yesterday evening. Interesting to see the variation in seeing through the time lapse. 

Thanks Stu, I could have probably mostly ironed out the seeing if I'd taken more frames but finding space to save them all was getting quite problematic (about to delete all 1.7tb to free up space). The wind became the bigger problem later on. 

[Nik271]

Very nice to see sunspots in action, thanks for the video! This proves long summer days of sunshine are good for something after all

[Stu]

3 minutes ago, AbsolutelyN said:

Thanks Stu, I could have probably mostly ironed out the seeing if I'd taken more frames but finding space to save them all was getting quite problematic (about to delete all 1.7tb to free up space). The wind became the bigger problem later on. 

No criticism intended, it’s just something that we are all at the mercy of. It was very clear to me yesterday, the difference between observing in very variable conditions at lunchtime vs very stable seeing after 5pm, the views were stunning.

That’s a crazy amount of data! Keeping track of, and processing that lot must be a nightmare!!

[AbsolutelyN]

1 minute ago, Stu said:

No criticism intended, it’s just something that we are all at the mercy of. It was very clear to me yesterday, the difference between observing in very variable conditions at lunchtime vs very stable seeing after 5pm, the views were stunning.

None taken , I was was just meaning it could have been better as reasonable seeing was quite frequent but I had to draw a line on how much data to capture as it gets out of hand quickly. For me it seemed best in the morning, then mid afternoon. I lose the sun 4:30 unfortunately, would have loved to get a few more hours movement. The scope isn't on grass either so I suspect the ground around has an impact. Out of about 120 images only a handful stand out as being particularly good seeing. 

[AbsolutelyN]

11 minutes ago, Nik271 said:

Very nice to see sunspots in action, thanks for the video! This proves long summer days of sunshine are good for something after all

Capturing the data on one of those rare completely cloudless days is only half the task, you then have to spend all night processing it too 🙂 

[Stu]

1 hour ago, AbsolutelyN said:

Capturing the data on one of those rare completely cloudless days is only half the task, you then have to spend all night processing it too 🙂 

Indeed! That’s why I’m purely visual! 🤣🤣 well, apart from the odd Mickey Mouse smartphone ‘snap’ 😉

I have tried stacking 4K video off the phone but haven’t had any decent results yet.

[TakMan]

Superb, the end result has paid back all your effort.... and amount of data!

Damian

[AbsolutelyN]

8 minutes ago, TakMan said:

Superb, the end result has paid back all your effort.... and amount of data!

Damian

Thanks Damian. Processing the volume of data was harder than capturing it in the first place. Very time consuming but amazing that you can capture the movement like this. Never thought such things would be possible back when I was looking at sunspots through a scrap of welding glass in the school playground 🙂

[wouterdhoye]

impressive animation. A great effort too. The details are really astonishing!

[Kitsunegari]

i think the sunspot rotation is the most impressive part of this entire capture,  i dont think another amateur has captured this affect ever.

 

You may be the first, and its worth investigating.   Ive never seen them rotate in SDO captures before and ive watched them for 10 years.

[AbsolutelyN]

7 hours ago, Kitsunegari said:

i think the sunspot rotation is the most impressive part of this entire capture,  i dont think another amateur has captured this affect ever.

 

You may be the first, and its worth investigating.   Ive never seen them rotate in SDO captures before and ive watched them for 10 years.

I had to select an anchor point to align all the files to for a point of reference because after stacking they were not even close to being aligned. I chose the uppermost central sunspot so that barely moves at all. Not sure if that affects how they appear to be moving relative to everything else? 

[Rusted]

Superb animation with amazing resolution! 

[tooth_dr]

Tristan, that is class!  I have successfully used the solar film holder you made for me, havent got it processed yet.  Did you use a barlow here?  How did you track it over 9.5 hours?

[AbsolutelyN]

24 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Tristan, that is class!  I have successfully used the solar film holder you made for me, havent got it processed yet.  Did you use a barlow here?  How did you track it over 9.5 hours?

Thanks Adam, hope it gets you some nice images. I'm going to keep an eye out for the larger sheets to make a full 10" filter but I'm guessing it would only be of use with exceptional seeing. 8" is certainly working well. This was taken with a 3x barlow - 3600mm focal length. My scope is hooked up to my PC where I was working all day so I just used a 5 min repeat timer, the crosshair target in SharpCap and nudged it to a specific sunspot as a reference point.  It never drifted far in 5 mins so it was just a few seconds work every 5 mins to position and then hit capture.  So very easy to capture ... but very time consuming, especially to process

Edited June 3, 2021 by AbsolutelyN

[tooth_dr]

7 hours ago, AbsolutelyN said:

Thanks Adam, hope it gets you some nice images. I'm going to keep an eye out for the larger sheets to make a full 10" filter but I'm guessing it would only be of use with exceptional seeing. 8" is certainly working well. This was taken with a 3x barlow - 3600mm focal length. My scope is hooked up to my PC where I was working all day so I just used a 5 min repeat timer, the crosshair target in SharpCap and nudged it to a specific sunspot as a reference point.  It never drifted far in 5 mins so it was just a few seconds work every 5 mins to position and then hit capture.  So very easy to capture ... but very time consuming, especially to process

Excellent! I recently have been looking into solar guiding. Will drop you a PM. 

[Trevor N]

Excellent images and video

[GreatAttractor]

Excellent animation.

About the rotation - I haven't seen anything like it either. Some pores circling each other, yes, but not a rotating developed spot.

 

23 hours ago, AbsolutelyN said:

I had to select an anchor point to align all the files to for a point of reference because after stacking they were not even close to being aligned.

You might be interested in ImPPG's image alignment feature.

[MarsG76]

That is an awesome timelapse!

 

[AbsolutelyN]

8 minutes ago, GreatAttractor said:

Excellent animation.

About the rotation - I haven't seen anything like it either. Some pores circling each other, yes, but not a rotating developed spot.

 

You might be interested in ImPPG's image alignment feature.

Brill thanks - I only discovered ImPPG yesterday and have not used it yet - didn't know it aligned images. Will give it a try. Aligning manually inn Photoshop is very time consuming! 

[AbsolutelyN]

14 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Excellent! I recently have been looking into solar guiding. Will drop you a PM. 

Sounds very interesting thanks. 

[niallk]

Superb time-lapse 👍👍

[vineyard]

That is amazing. Bravo!

[CraigT82]

Wow top work Tristan.... is there anything that 250 pds can't do?!