Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

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Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by Averton »

It was forecast to return to cloudy conditions today but when we looked out the window this morning it was unexpectedly clear. We quickly set up to take some images but the forecast was correct, just a little late. By the time we had taken a few images the sky quickly changed from no clouds to full clouds. An hour later and it was raining as well ... ah summer in Melbourne :)
Anyway it was good to get another glimpse of what was going on and the seeing was a little better which was nice. We only got a full disk in Ha and 393nm.
Ha full disk
2023-02-01 full disk.jpg
2023-02-01 full disk.jpg (2.09 MiB) Viewed 441 times
2023-02-01 full disk colourised.jpg
2023-02-01 full disk colourised.jpg (5.29 MiB) Viewed 441 times
2023-02-01 full disk inv.jpg
2023-02-01 full disk inv.jpg (2.17 MiB) Viewed 441 times
2023-02-01 full disk inv colourised.jpg
2023-02-01 full disk inv colourised.jpg (5.17 MiB) Viewed 441 times
393nm disk
2023-02-01 full disk 393nm named.jpg
2023-02-01 full disk 393nm named.jpg (819.98 KiB) Viewed 441 times
2023-02-01 full disk 393nm.jpg
2023-02-01 full disk 393nm.jpg (816.7 KiB) Viewed 441 times
2023-02-01 full disk 393nm colourised.jpg
2023-02-01 full disk 393nm colourised.jpg (1.31 MiB) Viewed 441 times
seeing data
2023-02-01 seeing.png
2023-02-01 seeing.png (89.6 KiB) Viewed 441 times


Clare & Peter
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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by MAURITS »

A very detailed image session Clare & Peter.


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by arnedanielsen »

Beautiful disks!

Best regards,
Arne


Best regards,
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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by pedro »

great FD images there Clare & Peter


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by DeepSolar64 »

Awesome work on all Clare & Peter!

I always find it challenging to edit CaK and many Ha images to increase contrast and detail. The disc is often unevenly lit making the center much brighter than the edges. Some of this is natural due to seeing deeper into the Sun's layers at the center than at the edge ( limb darkening ) but some is often caused by the filter(s) too. This uneven brightness makes simply increasing the contrast impossible. I used several tools in GIMP to try to increase the visibility of the faculae/plage visible in your CaK image. Brightness-contrast, curves, saturation, shadows-highlights and in the last image a slight amount of gaussian blur. I wish there was a quick " even brightness " tool!!

It is really hard to get the plages to show up like I want to. I guess that's the beauty of ultra-narrowband filters like the Lunt modules. Higher contrast!!

Here are the two re-edited images of yours.

James


2023-02-01 full disk 393nm_3nmFilter__Averton.jpg
2023-02-01 full disk 393nm_3nmFilter__Averton.jpg (1.55 MiB) Viewed 420 times
2023-02-01 full disk 393nm_3nmFilter_2_Averton.jpg
2023-02-01 full disk 393nm_3nmFilter_2_Averton.jpg (889.54 KiB) Viewed 420 times


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by Peterm »

Really nice imaging Clare & Peter. The only chance I have in the next few days is tomorrow morning 646am our time for an IIS Solar transit (my first attempt) last 1.7 seconds. It's not at an ideal distance/size @ 1100km and 24" but will have a go and who knows..


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by JohnW »

Thanks Clare and Peter for your images - are you able to tell what is the best time of day to image the Sun using your SSM data?
Regards, John W.


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by Montana »

A terrific set :bow :hamster: the spots are all very tiny at the moment, but in one week maybe the big spots will return for a second pass.

Good luck with the ISS Peter!

Alexandra


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by Carbon60 »

Nicely done, Clare and Peter. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly sometimes the sky can go from clear and blue from horizon to horizon to cloudy, usually just when things get set up ready for imaging. I’m convinced solar scopes are cloud magnets. :lol:

Stu.


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by Averton »

Thanks Maurits, Arne and Pedro :)
Your comments are greatly appreciated.


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by Averton »

DeepSolar64 wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 4:10 pm Awesome work on all Clare & Peter!

I always find it challenging to edit CaK and many Ha images to increase contrast and detail. The disc is often unevenly lit making the center much brighter than the edges. Some of this is natural due to seeing deeper into the Sun's layers at the center than at the edge ( limb darkening ) but some is often caused by the filter(s) too. This uneven brightness makes simply increasing the contrast impossible. I used several tools in GIMP to try to increase the visibility of the faculae/plage visible in your CaK image. Brightness-contrast, curves, saturation, shadows-highlights and in the last image a slight amount of gaussian blur. I wish there was a quick " even brightness " tool!!

It is really hard to get the plages to show up like I want to. I guess that's the beauty of ultra-narrowband filters like the Lunt modules. Higher contrast!!

Here are the two re-edited images of yours.

James



2023-02-01 full disk 393nm_3nmFilter__Averton.jpg

2023-02-01 full disk 393nm_3nmFilter_2_Averton.jpg
Thanks James.

Thanks for attempting to improve the contrast of that image. We were not entirely satisfied with it and are still playing with different methods of improving the contrast. We also use GIMP and have played round with all of the tools you have mentioned but haven't found a satisfactory combination that is repeatable and so have just gone with a straight image colourised for the time being. It is definitely still a work in progress.
Your second image looks good.


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by Averton »

Peterm wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 10:36 pm Really nice imaging Clare & Peter. The only chance I have in the next few days is tomorrow morning 646am our time for an IIS Solar transit (my first attempt) last 1.7 seconds. It's not at an ideal distance/size @ 1100km and 24" but will have a go and who knows..
Thanks Peter :)
Good luck with the transit. Hope you get an image. It is something that we have wanted to try.


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by Averton »

JohnW wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 10:49 pm Thanks Clare and Peter for your images - are you able to tell what is the best time of day to image the Sun using your SSM data?
Regards, John W.
Hi John,
Yes there is no doubt that the SSM data can and does provide enough information to choose the best time to image.
Thus far it has confirmed what we had already suspected and is in line with all the information about on solar imaging. That is, first thing in the morning until around 10am is a good 1-1.5 arc seconds better than 10am to 2pm. Thereafter it is probably 2 arc seconds worse. Much later on there does seem to be some minor improvement but we cannot get low enough for the improvement to be significant (the roof of the house gets in the way).
We also suspect that later in the year as the rise position of the sun moves further north there will also be further improvement as the sun path will clear some localised heat sources. It'll be good to be able to quantify this. It is still early days as we need to collect a good deal more data and correlate it to other collected data, BOM, Meteoblue, Skippy etc.


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by Averton »

Montana wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 7:44 am A terrific set :bow :hamster: the spots are all very tiny at the moment, but in one week maybe the big spots will return for a second pass.

Good luck with the ISS Peter!

Alexandra
Thanks Alexandra :)
It will be interesting to see if AR3190 does make it back around. It looks like your crown prom from a week back has returned.


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by Averton »

Carbon60 wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 7:45 am Nicely done, Clare and Peter. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly sometimes the sky can go from clear and blue from horizon to horizon to cloudy, usually just when things get set up ready for imaging. I’m convinced solar scopes are cloud magnets. :lol:

Stu.
Thanks Stu :)
It is amazing just how quickly weather conditions can change! Fortunately for us, it's usually not dangerous to us like the case of sailors or mountaineers. Solar scopes are definitely cloud magnets but in our case, any scope seems to do the job :)


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by ffellah »

A fine set, Clare and Peter. Happy that you had a chance to image the sun before it quickly turned cloudy.

Franco


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by Averton »

ffellah wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 11:16 am A fine set, Clare and Peter. Happy that you had a chance to image the sun before it quickly turned cloudy.

Franco
Thanks Franco :)


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by rigel123 »

Great set!


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by marktownley »

Super disks!


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Re: Unexpected sunny morning 1 February 2023

Post by Averton »

Thanks Warren and Mark :)


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