20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

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MjrTom

20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by MjrTom »

Here is another from me comprising of 10 images captured with a Canon 7D (1/250 second @ ISO 100) and stacked in registax.
Shot using the ED80 @ f/13 with Baader ND3.8 solar film and stacked Baader Continuum and UV/IR cut filters mounted on an Astrotrac TT320X-AG




I am fairly happy with the image but welcome your thoughts as well.

Thanks

Mark


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by florencior »

The downside is awesome, but the sun looks very flat now


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by Cschur »

I like the neat quadrate of sunspots right on the limb. Excellent processing!


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by swisswalter »

Hi Mark

a very fine shot. Nice to see the new AR :)


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by marktownley »

Great shot Mark! I reckon the shot taking end of things is sorted. What post processing do you do on your whitelight full disks? That is where you could probably eek a bit more out...


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by Montana »

Tremendous work Mark :)

Yes do tell how you do your processing.

Alexandra


MjrTom

Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by MjrTom »

Thanks all for your comments, really appreciated.

Great shot Mark! I reckon the shot taking end of things is sorted. What post processing do you do on your whitelight full disks? That is where you could probably eek a bit more out...

Tremendous work Mark :)

Yes do tell how you do your processing.

Alexandra

Yes sure! It might help with working out how I can improve things.

This image was captured as 18 DSLR frames with Registax 5.1 automatically picked the best 10 frames for stacking.
Once stacked I applied a very light adjustment of wavelets using the first slider. The valus was about 10.0.
After that I exported it as jpeg and loaded it into CS3 where I adjusted the levels a little to increase contrast.
Next I applied false colour using the colour balance tool then desaturated it until the colour was natural looking.
Lastly I applied USM at amount = 20, radius = 1px

What I noticed is that if I use more aggressive settings the whole disc looked better but the zoomed in view looked quite noisy and the sunspots looked blocky.
I guess since I am doing full discs, how it looks at full disc is more important than at pixel level.

Here is the raw image which I have used to produce this final image.




I welcome your thoughts and any suggestions on how to improve my workflow

Thanks in advance!

Mark


MjrTom

Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by MjrTom »

Also here is the best single frame from the images picked for stacking ;)




Mark


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by NandoPG »

Mjr Tom,
I think the image is great as it is, but I also think it can be even better. Try the following:

1- Get the image without any wavelet restoration applied, this is the image stacked out of the Registax without any sharpening.

2- Open the image in CS3.

3- Do the sharpening using: Filter-Shrpen-Smart Sherpening Use the following settings in Smart Sharpening:
Advanced: Checked
More Accurate: Checked
Remove: Lens Blurr (choose)
Amount: 98%
Radius: 2.5px

4- Then use your false color scheme or use the false color action that Ken Crawford did and shared with us. If you don't have it I can send it for you.

I applied these procedures on your image Stacked-NoWavelet-NoPP.jpg, which is very well captured. The result is shown below for reference.

I hope you like it,

Fernando




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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by Montana »

Wow that is really crisp Fernando!!

Alexandra


MjrTom

Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by MjrTom »

Wow big thanks Fernando :D
That really looks much crisper than my attempt.
I will try and follow your suggestions using the high resolution image and post my results back for a comparison ;)


MjrTom

Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by MjrTom »

Here is my attempt following your advice.

What is most noticeable is AR1434 splits into two discrete spots which my first attempt didn't resolve.



I used your sharpening settings and the following RGB values adjusted using CS3/Image Adjustments/colour balance.
Shadows:
R= +50
G= 0
B= -50

Midtone:
R= +50
G= 0
B= -50

Highlights:
R= +50
G= 0
B= -50

Hope you like it ;)


NandoPG

Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by NandoPG »

Mjr. Tom,
I certainly like it very much !! :woohoo:

I can see a noticeable improvemente in contrast and sharpness in your reprocessing.

Very well done,

Fernando


MjrTom

Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by MjrTom »

Thanks again for your help, it is much appreciated. :bow:

Next step is to pick up a DMK41 :)

Mark


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by Montana »

I like it!

Alexandra


MjrTom

Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by MjrTom »

Thanks Alexandra.

Decision time is... hmm....
PST or DMK41 for the next purchase?
What would you go for next?


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by Montana »

That would depend on what you are most desperate for :)

Views in hydrogen alpha or more images of white light :)

Alexandra


MjrTom

Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by MjrTom »

Thanks Alexandra :)
I want both! :whistle:

Well I suspect I shall go for the CCD camera first although I really enjoy Ha viewing from what little I have experienced so far.


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by NandoPG »

Mjr.Tom,

If you allow me, I'm with you on this. Pick the camera first then the Ha scope. If possible, get also the filters for enhanced WL imaging like Chris proposed (Continuum Solar Filter + UV/IR cut). This would be the perfect kit.

Best Regards and success with the new setup.

Fernando


MjrTom

Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by MjrTom »

Thanks Fernando :)
I do currently have 2" Baader Continuum and UV/IR rejection filters. They were used during the capture of the image in this thread ;)
I shall resist the urge for Ha and improve my capture of White Light to start with. :)
I would like to capture closeups of active regions and this should be possible with the DMK camera and 2.5x Powermate which I already own.
The only other thing that is interesting me at the moment is a Baader Herschel wedge.
Is the resolution of a Herschel wedge a huge difference to front mounted solar film?


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by Cschur »

Your resolution would be the about the same - limited by the actual seeing. But the contrast is around 3x more with the wedge. It is not cheap, so Id go for the camera first!


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by MjrTom »

OK thanks for the info :)


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by marktownley »

Great stuff Mark, only thing i would add is to export from registax as a 16 bit tiff file, not a jpeg, will give you lots more data to play with.

PST or DMK - hmmmm, go for the PST ;)


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Re: 20 Mar 2012 White Light - Full Disc

Post by MjrTom »

Thanks Mark :)
I shall do that next time!
Yeah I would agree with you in that way, the PST is the fun purchase the DMK is the sensible option :p


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