Canon 7D shots from my breaks at work on April 1st

[solarchat]

Im really starting to like the simplicity of just using a DSLR without all the hassle of a laptop, power supply, tables, chairs, etcc..

I know these are not up to par withe the stuff we can all get from our fancy PGR's and DMK's etc.. but man is it simple.

This is one image in color straight from the camera. Looks like crap..



This is 7 images like this one taken in color and then stacked and sharpened a little. Still pretty bad as the camera is working hard to add blue and green to a red only image...



However, if you shoot in monochrome at around 1000 iso and very short exposures you can get a lot more detail. This is 7 images taken in monochrome at the lowest jpg resolution that the 7D will allow and then stacked in Registax. I cut out the surface, process it seperately and then paste it back on top of the original image a little bit larger to cover the over exposed edges inherent in the 7D photos.



This is another group of 7 images of proms and surface together processed as above and then colorized with the patented Ramsden Orange fire..





This technique produces a very fast and fairly good image with almost no work and less than 15 minutes total time from capture to end result. Im not going to give away my fancy cameras and laptops yet but it is nice to know that you can get great results with just a moderately priced DSLR.



If anyone is interested, the camera is attached to a cheap 2X teleconverter and then to a short barrel 2 inch adator. This is inserted into the B1800 on my Lunt LS80/LS60 grab and go setup using the optional Lunt 2 inch blocking filter adaptor. I am using an unguided Twilight II mount from Exp Sci.. (by the way, I have an extra extension if anyone needs it-they sent me two for some reason) I use the LS35 as my finder scope..






my current air traffic trainee Jason does all the heavy lifting..


Happy Hunting folks. I have three schools over the next three days so I may be out of contact a little...

[MjrTom]

Great results Admin
I currently shoot solely with the Canon 7D and find that you can get pretty good images from it.
I always set the camera to Monochrome for all my shots.
As you say its such a quick method to capture images, usually using this method to grab a few images in white light when on my lunch breaks. Food is for wimps
Mark

[Cschur]

Stephen, its hard to believe that the final shot was the same camera as the first few. I have a Hutech modified canon XTi with a filter that lets all the Ha through to the chip. I should try this.

[solarchat]

yep. they were all shot within about 3 minutes. a total of 25 exposures, I used 2 seperate sets of the best 7 frames to stack.

Monochrome mode makes all the difference.

[iwatkins]

Nice work.

I was playing with this myself on Sunday. Just a PST and a 7D with a Hyperion 8mm in between. Monochrome shots look great.

Although I normally image at night with a laptop, cables, stuff everywhere, I'm also aiming to work light when shooting in the light.

Monochrome setting can be further enhanced by adding "filters" in the on camera software. I need to play with that a bit more.

I also need to play with shooting HD video, in monochrome. But I suspect the conversion from .MOV format to AVI for stacking would have too many artifacts in it.

Back to shooting stills, I'm looking to invest in a remote or cabled remote/interval/multi shot remote. Should make taking multi shots or time lapse a lot easier without a laptop.

The only issue with all of that is focus.

Two options here:

1. Auto focus. OK, not auto but close. You can get a T ring with the small contacts that fool the camera into thinking a lens is attached. You can then line up a target, half hold the shutter release and focus the telescope. You'll than get a focus confirmation when image is sharp.

2. Get something like a Lilliput 7" LCD monitor that connects to the HDMI output to help with manual focus.

I'm rambling.

Cheers

Ian

[Montana]

Wow these are amazing!

All I need is a posh camera then

Alexandra

[marktownley]

Top shots Stephen!

[edobosz]

hey they came up very nicely Stephen. It is always tempting to grab the DSLR but I have never had much success.
Ted

[MjrTom]

My method of focusing is by setting the camera to liveview then aiming at an area of the solar disc that has pores.
I then use the 5x and 10x zoom function to zoom right in on the pore and focus accordingly.
Pores seem to snap into focus a lot better than larger features on the surface.
The image does bounce about quite a bit as it's effectively 5000-10000mm focal length with my two scopes however I use a Moonlite crayford focuser which means I can just roll my finger across the 8:1 reduction knob which keeps the image more stable than pinching the knob and turning it if you know what I mean.
I also use a manual Alt/Az very similar to what you use in your images above.

I have also tried shooting HD video at 1080p but the results are not great, there seems to be quite a lot of compression artefacts and it's and .mov is an awkward file format to convert to Avi which registax will accept