13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

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13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by p_zetner »

Hi Everyone.

Here is a selection of some of the regions visible on the very active Sun's surface as of July 13. I've attached a NSO image marked with the active regions I managed to image.
NSO Disk labelled.jpg
NSO Disk labelled.jpg (403.66 KiB) Viewed 551 times
Images were taken with a system comprising: Aries ERF, Celestron C8 Edge, Moonlite CHL focuser, ~4.4x Telecentric, Daystar QPE 0.6A, ~0.7x FR, Point Grey USB3 Grasshopper IMX174. Shots of the ARs were taken at ~ f/44 (~ 8800 mm focal length) as well as ~ f/30 (~ 6000 mm focal length) using the focal reducer. In addition to the on-band H alpha results, I also imaged at 1 angstrom detuned to the blue. Hopefully, all is clear from the figure captions.

Thanks for looking.
Cheers.
Peter
13Jul2022 Halpha 8800mmfl AR13055.jpg
13Jul2022 Halpha 8800mmfl AR13055.jpg (943.16 KiB) Viewed 551 times
13Jul2022 Halpha 6000mmfl AR13055.jpg
13Jul2022 Halpha 6000mmfl AR13055.jpg (1.01 MiB) Viewed 551 times
13Jul2022 Halpha-1A 6000mmfl AR13055.jpg
13Jul2022 Halpha-1A 6000mmfl AR13055.jpg (1.04 MiB) Viewed 551 times
13Jul2022 Halpha 8800mmfl AR13057.jpg
13Jul2022 Halpha 8800mmfl AR13057.jpg (845.71 KiB) Viewed 551 times
13Jul2022 Halpha-1A 6000mmfl  AR13057.jpg
13Jul2022 Halpha-1A 6000mmfl AR13057.jpg (990.77 KiB) Viewed 551 times
13Jul2022 Halpha 8800mmfl AR13053.jpg
13Jul2022 Halpha 8800mmfl AR13053.jpg (1.02 MiB) Viewed 551 times
13Jul2022 Halpha 6000mmfl AR13053.jpg
13Jul2022 Halpha 6000mmfl AR13053.jpg (1 MiB) Viewed 551 times
13Jul2022 Halpha-1A 6000mmfl  AR13053.jpg
13Jul2022 Halpha-1A 6000mmfl AR13053.jpg (1.06 MiB) Viewed 551 times
13Jul2022 Halpha 8800mmfl AR13056.jpg
13Jul2022 Halpha 8800mmfl AR13056.jpg (955.04 KiB) Viewed 551 times
13Jul2022 Halpha 6000mmfl Prominences SE Limb.jpg
13Jul2022 Halpha 6000mmfl Prominences SE Limb.jpg (444.38 KiB) Viewed 551 times


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by MAURITS »

Thanks for this great presentation Peter.


Regards,
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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by Carbon60 »

These are awesome images, Peter. Very nice indeed.

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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by Valery »

Very nice images, Peter! Thanks for sharing.

This setup works well. In particular, this Quantum 0.6A.


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by Dennis »

Awesome resolution and images Peter.
I also like the off band ones.. looks like a ellerman party.


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by ffellah »

Great views of the sun’s features, Peter. Thank you for sharing them.

Franco


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by pedro »

Fantastic HR H-alpha imagens Peter, love them all, great resolution


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by arnedanielsen »

Fabulous collection, Peter!

Thanks for sharing,
Arne


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by marktownley »

Very impressive set there Peter, thanks for sharing.


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by LTHB »

Wonderful images, Peter, thanks for showing!

I find the side-by-side comparison of on-band and -1A images extremely instructive and helpful! I am still struggling with the exact tuning of my own h-alpha setup (as you may have noticed from my images from July 11th). On Wednesday I have imaged the very regions you captured, too - I just posted three images here: viewtopic.php?t=37145.

Looking i.e. at the AR13055 images side by side seems to me to confirm that my image is in the blue wing: I can find every one of the conspicuous bright spots around the left-hand sunspot on my image also on your -1A image. On the other hand on your image there seem to be more smaller bright dots. None of the bright spots is to be found on your on-band image. Although the processing of the images is of course different this looks to me like my filter's detuning is a bit less than 1A, but certainly in the blue.

A question, if I may: Would you mind to say what you use for sharpening your high resolution images? They look nice and smooth and not overshapened at all. (Mine probably are mostly oversharpened, but I find it hard to avoid that and still bring out the fine structures. I'm using LR deconvolution and several passes of unsharp mask usually.)

Best regards,

Frank


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by rigel123 »

Excellent set Peter!


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by p_zetner »

Dear Maurits, Stu, Valery, Dennis, Franco, Pedro, Arne, Mark, Frank and Warren; Thanks very much for your kind comments!

Frank: I'm always wrestling with my tendency to oversharpen but I think I've finally got the hang of applying the right amount. Seeing as I have a single stack, 0.6 angstrom bandpass filter, there is usually quite a lot of detail present in the images, especially in spot penumbrae so I try to bring this out as much as possible. Although I haven't been successful with it yet, double stacking processing would, I think, rely more on contrast enhancement than sharpening. I don't use any deconvolution (regularly, anyway) because I find it tends to introduce artifacts into the image, especially if followed by mild sharpening. I've attached a three-pane image which shows the original stacked image (25/2000) on the left, a wavelet sharpened image (centre) and a "Maximum Entropy" deconvolution followed by mild wavelets on the right. The stacked / unprocessed is already not bad and speaks to the good seeing I had for the July 13 imaging session. I use Astrospheric for seeing forecasts and find it to be pretty reliable.
2022-07-13-1319_Montage.jpg
2022-07-13-1319_Montage.jpg (120.4 KiB) Viewed 443 times
The deconvolution (right pane) is overdone but it shows the characteristic "wormy" pattern I've come to recognize in a lot of overly deconvolved images. The deconvolution and the wavelet sharpening was done with Astra Image. I really like this version of wavelet sharpening. Size scales are well divided into 5 groups, all useful. It's better than the ImagesPlus multiresolution sharpening in which, generally, only 3 of the 5 size scales are useful. I've used LR deconvolution in ImagesPlus in the past but have only found it marginally worthwhile. Personally, I don't like ImPPG deconvolution / sharpening at all and a lot of images with obvious "worminess" seem to come from using this software. I've also used "Smart sharpen" in Photoshop and unsharp mask in ImageJ. In the end, the Astra Image sharpening process seems to be superior and is my go to choice.

Hope this helps.

All the best.
Peter


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by KMH »

Peter,

Those are terrific images!
I also really like Astra Image for sharpening. For me the LR deconvolution generally provides the most pleasing results, but as you say it is easy to overdo it. "Worminess" is a good description when that happens.

Kevin


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by DeepSolar64 »

Peter,
I like the way you have rectangled off the active regions and prominences on the GONG image that you have imaged yourself. Nice idea!

And very nice images too!

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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by LeoD »

Great session, Peter!
You're near the limits with 8800 fl and it came out very well!
I imaged the same plot at the same time with C11, this is really cool to see and compare the results with pleasure here on SC.
Thanks!
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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by vineyard »

Holy moly, those closeups :shock: The 3-pane comparison is also v interesting, the middle one is definitely the best of the 3. Thank you for sharing!


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by LTHB »

Thanks, Peter, for the detailed explanation and the helpful three-pane image!

Your term „worminess“ is spot-on! My attempts to sharpen high resolution h-alpha images so far come out either too wormy, like this one:
Image

or too soft, like this:
Image

I‘ve also tried to use wavelet sharpening a couple of times, i.e. the wavelet tools in Registax, but so far with no acceptable results. The images I tried to sharpen with Registax showed artifacts much worse than any worminess from LR deconvolution and certainly looked nothing like your smooth and still detailed middle pane. I didn‘t know that different implementations of wavelets can make a real difference, so I will take a look at Astra Image and give wavelet sharpening another try, thanks for the suggestion!

Best regards,

Frank


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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by nicspenceryork »

Wow amazing images Peter and really good example of sharpening which is very helpful,
Thanks
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Re: 13 July: An assortment of H alpha images.

Post by p_zetner »

Thanks everyone!
I lucked out with the seeing in this session.
Cheers.
Peter


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