Fun in the Sun with the PSTs 2nd August

[Montana]

All day we had buckets of rain until late afternoon

Thunder by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

then sunshine

Silver lining by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

for 30 mins

2014-08-02-plane- Animation by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

2014-08-02 f colour by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

2014-08-02 17-40-19 f colour by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

2014-08-02 1-6x f colour by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

2014-08-02 17-24-52 f colour by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

I really hope tomorrow is brighter, but I had great fun for 30 minutes today

Alexandra

[marktownley]

30 minutes well spent! That plane transit is something special!

[renims]

aircraft revelation

[grimble_cornet]

Glad you managed to get your 'solar fix' today after the cloudy weekends and sunny mid-weeks of late


Fantastic pst-fest with some really great images, especially from the CaK pst.


I tried to get hold of one of those for a long time before giving up and going for the Lunt.

[JohnW]

Nice set of pics Alexandra. Good to see you get some Sun. Cheers, John W.

[solar]

Super 30 minutes Alexandra.
I have relocated 3000 thousand Klms south so I will be out of the game for a while.
Have to build some thing to observe with. I really miss my old observing setup.

[jp-brahic]

yess !!! 30 mn Perfectly used

JP

[mattwastell]

Those clouds look nasty. Glad it cleared and you got in some super imaging - nice transit reward too - conditions looked OK by the snippet video!

[swisswalter]

Hi Alexandra

I'm happy for you that you finally got some sunrays in, congratulations on the transit and the proms in the CaK shot

[Derek Klepp]

That plane animation is just superb as are the rest of the images.I honestly think you should be the PST ambassador .Glad you had a good break in the clouds which are my favourite.

[Carbon60]

WOW....fabulous set of images, Alexandra and fantastic transit!

30 minutes very well spent indeed.




Stu.

[pedro]

Fantastic images and jet transit. One of the best transits I've seen.

[Ibbo]

lovely images

[solarchat]

from Facebook...(you have a lot of fans)

[highfnum]

very well done

airplane shot is cool

[sullij1]

Congrats! Well deserved. Love the CaK.

[Cschur]

Wow,there are some great shots there. Looks like my skies today...

Chris

[swisswalter]

Hi Alexandra

congratulations on the pic of the day

[Montana]

thanks everyone, you are all far too kind and thanks Stephen for the facebook glimpse, they are definitely too kind

I do love my PSTs

Alexandra

[grimble_cornet]

Congratulations Alexandra - makes up for those sunny weekdays and cloudy weekends

[solardave]

nice work Alexandra can you teach me how you did 5 and 7 I just love them

[Montana]

No problem Dave, do you have Photoshop?

If so,

1. Process and finish both your disc shot and the prominence shot to how you want it to be (coloured or not it doesn't matter).
2. With your full disc shot pick the 'magic wand' tool and click in the black area of your disc shot. You will see a snaky moving line all round the disc. If it isn't a smooth round circle (bumps over proms) reduce the tolerance or increase it, for this around 30 was good. Once a smooth round circle go to step 3.
3. Go to Select - Inverse
4. Go to Select - Modify - Smooth and choose 2-5 pixels (depends on image)
4. Go to Select - Modify - Feather and choose 2 pixels
5. Pick the 'Move' tool
6. Click and hold on the disc and drag and drop it into your prom image. Carefully move it so it matches up in the disc.
7. Now you can sit and modify both layers until you get them how you want them either colours, brightness etc.
8. Flatten the image and save.

Any other questions just ask I hope this helps.
Alexandra

[astrovale]

Oh no! The plane is missing an engine

Great stuff Alexandra, just great stuff!

Luca

[solardave]

hi Alexandra how do I get two images in photoshop at the same time to drag one on top of the other mine just seem to go under the back ground thanks david

[solarchat]

Once you have masked off the disk portion with the magic wand just choose "copy" then go to the other image and choose paste. it pastures it as a new layer which can be moved around and resized or edited independently of the background layer. I find that a slight resize larger will help cover the edges of the underlying prominence image.

There are a million youtube video tutorials about using photoshop. Thats how I learned. I especially like the series on youtube entitled "You Suck at Photoshop" . its funny and informative. |
Just ask whatever question you have in the title bar of your browser and you will find a video. i.e. "How do I past one image onto another in photoshop" hit enter and oulla'

[grimble_cornet]

As an alternative approach:
After completing steps 1-4 in Alexandra's method....
5. Copy (ctrl+c) the selected part of the disc image.
6. Move to your proms image (click on the file name to select it) and paste (ctrl+v) the disc image.
7. Select the 'move' tool (top icon in tool bar for me?) and click and drag the disc image to match the edge of the burnt out disc of your proms image. With the move tool selected, you can use the arrow keys to move the selection pixel by pixel to exactly where you want it to be.
Go back to step 7 in Alexandra's instructions.

The screenshots below might help:

Mike

[Montana]

Hi David,
Go to the top

File - open (pick your image) open

Then go to File - open and pick the second and open.

Both images will be open in separate panes but depending on how you have your layout set up they are possibly locked one above the other. I usually have them unlocked in moveable windows so that you can put them side by side. To get them unstuck, left click on the tab and drag it down and let go, the window should now be floating in the workspace. This could be different in Elements? just investigate the workspace layout.

Let me know how you get on

Alexandra

[RobBower]

Awesome shots Alexandra! I always love your fly by's great timing!

[eroel]

Alexandra:
Well spet 30 minutes, congratulation for the SPOD.
Have a nice weekend.
Eric.

[solardave]

thanks Alexandra mike and Stephen for your help think im on the right track now

[grimble_cornet]

Glad you cracked it.
The first time is complicated and confusing - after a dozen you'll be doing them in your sleep!
Look forward to seeing more of your work.

Mike