Camera Labs

If you're here, you didn't listen to me. Anyway, here is the sun in all it's H-alpha glory. Complete with bad processing at no extra cost.

Canon 450D full spectrum modified. ISO100 1/50s.
Astronomik H-alpha 12nm filter fitted (more as a dust shield than anything useful).
Coronado Personal Solar Scope (400mm f/10)
Baader Hyperion 17mm eyepiece with T-adapter.
7.5mm extension to T-mount.
Astrotrack to make things easier

Handling the output of this is unlike anything else I've done so I think there's a lot more room for improvement there. This was therefore a bodge to get something interesting looking out fast, not well!

Processing from RAW in DxO. From preset, turn HDR and saturated colour protection to max. Desaturate in Photoshop Elements, midtone contrast reduce, add false colour then unsharp.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

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Now you're cooking. Tasty!

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Tonnes of detail. A PST is on my list of things to get but Im wrestling with DSO work at the moment.

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Lee Diggle
My Astronomy Blog | My Photography Gallery

The PST will be my "summer" toy, since it gets dark far too late for me to do deep sky stuff now. I haven't mastered the art of not sleeping before going to work. Turned out sleeping at work was frowned upon when I tried it

On that note, I got a second gear head today so that should help with my alignment if I don't come a cropper on the payload rating which I neglected to check before buying...

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Lol, yeah sleeping at my work isnt a good thing either.

Ill be watching how you progress with your PST, this might be something Ill look at next year.

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Lee Diggle
My Astronomy Blog | My Photography Gallery

One from today. Two image composite. Both on 450D at 1/50s. One ISO100, one ISO1600. Actually, I think the ISO1600 file has interesting details, as although I blew the red channel on the surface to get the prominences, there was overspill into the green and blue channels where I could recover surface detail. One sensor HDR? It could be if there's a RAW converter smart enough to do that...

DxO process, where today I found the Sepia default does an interesting colour conversion of this multi-channel data. Lots of random setting stabbing followed and finish off in PSE.

I have noticed, I can get detail in the middle of the sun, or on the edges, but not both. I don't think it's dopplar shift as it seems equal regardless of where on the rim it is. I'm guessing it's more exposure related, whichever one is better exposed gets more detail. Does that mean I need to HDR the sun?

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Have one from today: 1 April - no fooling!

I tried out the 14mm "fine tune" eyepiece extender today, which converts the Hyperion 17mm into a 13mm eyepiece. Kept 7.5mm t-ring extension camera side. This makes the sun a little bigger while keeping it in frame so I might get a little more detail out.

I also played about some more with the filter adjust on the scope. Previously in the limited time I had, I was focused on the prominences and as such I think I wasn't optimising the surface detail. As I didn't need to chase the setting sun between trees today, I tried some more adjustment and think I got some better detail out, along with taming my processing down a bit! Today I used a similar processing method to 1st post in this thread.

Seeing was worse than the previous evening attempts though. Lots of visible wobble with about 1 in 3 shots excessively blurry, as opposed to normally blurry. I am in the middle of a built up area which wont help, and the manual actually suggests you go to a large green area for better conditions.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

cool stuff popo, still like the first one the best.
I reckon I can recreate the others when I make pancakes

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Canon Powershot S95, Canon 7D, 15-85, Canon 85 1.8 USM, Sigma 30 1.4, 50mm 1.8, Canon 100 2.8L IS Macro, Canon 70-300L IS USM+Kenko 1.4 Pro 300DGX, Canon 430EX II and RS 4 Classic

Since discovering wavelets I just had a play with an older shot, seeing as the sun hasn't been spotted here for a while.


Photo from 22 May.

It definitely helped the details a lot, but I still need a lot of work on my false colour technique. I know I overcooked it this time, but I like the golden ball look so kept it for now...

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.