AR12297 Through a Pollution Sunset 17th March

[marktownley]

The weather for me lately has been awful - just persistent grey skies, day after day, soooo frustrating. Anyhow, the forecast for yesterday afternoon was for it to go sunny somewhere between 4-5pm, so after a busy day at work I decided to just get home and hope for the best. Well the skies did clear, but it was hazy, very hazy, infact the sky just had a yellow tinge to it, that just kept getting yellower the closer the sun got to the horizon. This is a 'pollution sunset' - Haze can form from a variety of sources, commonly industrial pollutants, desert dust or sea salt. The result of these small particles in the air gives a murky blue-grey appearance to the environment. On this occasion, the recent south-easterly flow which has affected the UK has brought air across the country from the industrial heartland of Europe. This has mixed with our own local urban pollutants, and with wind speeds very light under an area of high pressure, has added to the dull visual conditions.

To put it in perspective, my usual exposure settings with the quark on the ED80 are 1/30s and minimum gain (260 on a PC and IC Capture), but yesterday the histogram was telling me there was a lot of light missing, and to get to my usual levels I had to have to gain up at 900 (out of 1024 I think), the live view looked like there was 'snow' all over the image, or as is the 'dissolve filter' in photoshop was in operation. Somewhat disheartened by this I recorded away, as was setup and well, some sun is better than no sun!

Enter the magic of stacking software. Normally I record 300 frames and stack 50, today decided to record 1000 and stack 250 to try and average away the noise. I knew the results were never going to be perfect, but they surprised me in the sense were better than I thought they were going to be:

ar12297-departing-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

ar12297-departing-invert-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Woke this morning to freezing fog (and more grey skies!), with that forecast set to stay with us again possibly for another week, apart from maybe, just maybe, a few breaks on friday morning, let's see!

Mark

[Derek Klepp]

Mate you need to move.A good result despite the conditions

[GeorgeIonas]

Nice detail there Mark. I agree with Derek, you need to shift to a warmer climate - maybe to Aussie?

George

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice detail. Great filaprom. I must say the conditions here also make me want to move to the Provence or so once I retire (years away still, but a man may dream)

[mattwastell]

These came out very well - I hope you get a shot as the AR rounds the limb & flares for a loop prom......well we can hope!

[solardave]

nice images mark good job

[grimble_cornet]

Amazing results considering the conditions Mark

I was out on my drive at the same time testing out the new TS 'cheapo' x0.5 2" reducer on the Quark and had exactly the same problems with thick haze
I only had about 5 minutes between the sun coming out and it dipping below the house opposite so just grabbed a few shots with the Lunt60 plus Quark.
Good news is that the 'Chinese ring puzzle' seems to work giving a much more evenly illuminated fov than I get when using a normal nose-piece on the camera - direct coupling is clearly the way forward.
Difficult to judge the reduction factor but I suspect it was about x0.7 so need to play with the reducer-sensor distance when the sun is available

[swisswalter]

Hi Mark

what a thuesday story. I can feel with you. About 50% of our pics have snow in it too

we (Orphelia, Barbara and my selfe) suggest you move to the Kanton Tessin

[Carbon60]

Lovely images, Mark, despite the conditions.

Good luck for Friday morning......fingers crossed!!

Stu.

[Montana]

These are absolutely fantastic considering the conditions, you work miracles

Alexandra

[marktownley]

Thanks everyone! Direct coupling is most definitely the way forward with the Quark, I shall be doing a write up on it probably over the easter break when I have a bit of time.

[MapleRidge]

A great capture of AR2297...despite the conditions, you pulled it off.

Brian

[solar]

That's how it goes some times Mark. I think it is a top result.
I tend to get bogged down with what worked instead of trying different things. I am changing my ways.
Good luck with the Solar Ecp's tomorrow.

[marktownley]

Thanks all, a couple more that 'kinda' worked...

ar12303-Ha-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

ar12303-Ha-colour-invert by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Mark!