Sunspots 03 Aug

[PhilB]

I had some difficulty in stacking this, until it was pointed out that maybe that the number of alignment points I was allocating was a bit ambitious - thanks, Carole!



The telescope was a StellaVue AT1010, 80mm f6.1 stopped down to 60mm and fitted with a Baader AstroSolar safety film filter.
The camera was an ImageSource DFK fitted with an IR filter and using the supplied IC Capture software, setting the camera gain to 300 and the exposure to 1/250 second per frame.
The final image is a stack of the 50 best frames, stacked in Registax 6 with waveletts applied. A final tweak was made in CS2, boosting yellow to increase contrast.

[Carole]

Very nice Phil.  I take it the "greasy" smudge towards the bottom is some sort of muck on the optics.

Carole

[PhilB]

Yup, and the flat didn't completely remove it. Think I'll have to get the cleaning kit out

[Carole]

Never thought about taking flats with planetary images.  Makes sense though.

Carole

[The Thing]

Good capture Phil. Never had a go at imaging the sun but always enjoy looking at it (with appropriate filtering!).

I re-did my recent Jupiter with flats and darks (generated from AVIs using registax). Applying the dark was an  improvement, the flat definitely not so!

[Carole]

Did you manage to get any images with the society coronado?

Carole

[PhilB]

Thanks, Duncan. The flat did make a difference here, removing some dust bunnies but not the more substantial problem below centre. As for darks, when I try to take these with the DFK the capture software complains that it's lost the camera signal and shuts down

[PhilB]

Did you manage to get any images with the society coronado

Mick has this at the moment. I think he's having the same problem with focus that we did!

[Carole]

I think he's having the same problem with focus that we did!

I'm glad it's not just me.

Carole