Today's Sun

[Apollo XX]

I was out with the PST this morning and saw some beautiful sun. Decided to try and capture it. Slipped in my simple imaging setup - 25mm eyepiece/2x barlow/Kodak Z885. Disc recorded @ ISO100, F8, 1/1000, Proms recorded @ ISO200, F5, 1/400. Combined and processed in GIMP.

[Bruce D]

Beautiful shot Mike. I tried imaging with the PST and didn't have near as good results

[Apollo XX]

Thanks Bruce. The sun was beautiful today!

[mrgizmo65]

Ok this is try #3 let's see if stupid can get it right. Mike that is an impressive image, good job!! What scope do you have?? For Saturday I planto use the ETX 125 with a glass solar filter. Do you think that will be ok?? Hope to see you there Jerry.

[Apollo XX]

Thanks Jerry! The scope I used for this picture is my relatively new PST. The image is good for what it is - that being a simple snapshot through the eyepiece. Actually it's two snapshots - one for the disc and one for the limbs. I got curious as to how much of the "detail" shown was real vs. artifacts of processing (which can be pretty aggressive in cases like this) so I went to spaceweather.com where one can find every imaginable level of imaging going on. I took two sun images from the same day to compare mine to. The top one was shot by a well known solar imager with the usual video process through a 60mm Solarmax II, and the bottom one was also done with the usual video technique through a Lunt 100mm. I was pleased to find that most of the detail is legit and that the simple approach held up well.

[Apollo XX]

More SSI (Simpleton Sun Imaging) A hole in the clouds and a hurried deployment of the PST today revealed this awesome hedgerow prominence on the limb of the sun.

[Bruce D]

All with the PST?

[Apollo XX]

All with the PST?

Yessir, PST. Today's prominence was shot through the PST with the Kodak Z885 DSC on top of a 25mm/3x barlow. I only shot the prom which completely overexposes the disc, thus no disc detail.

[Bruce D]

I AM impressed!

[Pete]

I'm impressed too! What's with that black line between the sun and the prominences? It seems to go around the entire diameter.

Pete