Solar imaging - A guide to data acquisition and processing.

[Hughsie]

In May 2022 I was asked by my local astronomy club, Orwell Astronomical Society (Ipswich) to provide a presentation on solar imaging. That was basically it, a headline. So I got to thinking about previous presentations I have seen online and guidance I have picked up from reading solar imaging books and decided to bring together both a data acquisition and processing presentation into a single talk.The presentation was a month in the making as I acquired new images to present in order to emphasise the points I wanted to make.

In the main I image in Ha but the acquisition methods discussed here can equally be applied to CaK and natural light. Another factor to consider was the software for processing. I am a PixInsight user and this is my go to software for both my deep sky and solar images. PixInsight, whilst a fantastic tool can be out of reach for some due to the one off cost and the steep learning curve so I wanted to produce something that used cheaper, perhaps free software, to make the processing accessible for all. In this case I chose to use Affinity Photo and ImPPG.

A link to the presentation can be found below. Note that this is not a definitive guide, if you do something that works and it is different to me then sound off below. However, as I stop solar imaging after August/September because the Sun is too low for me to observe it from my home location, this is in some respects a reminder to myself of the methods I use  so I am not fumbling around at the start of my ‘Solar Season’.

With our Sun becoming more active and new solar imagers joining the ‘light side’, I hope that this will be a helpful guide.

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Hughsie