Big Solar Flare

[TimW]

Saw this beauty while up in NH for July 4th.

Sun 7_4_2020.jpg (482.88 KiB) Viewed 2361 times

[Pete]

awesome

[Bruce D]

Beautiful Tim, you have the same solar scope as Steve I think?

[TimW]

I've ordered a ASI174MM Monochrome camera for solar imaging. I'm currently using my ASI1600MC-Cool which isn't ideal for this application.

[Bruce D]

It seems to do a fine job Tim, but I'll be interested in seeing if the new camera produces even better images. I love this kind of experimenting to see which gear performs best (especially when other people are doing the experimenting! )

[Pete]

Actually Tim, I can't conceive as to how this image could be improved. So you're committing to LRGB imaging now?

[TimW]

Ha scopes make the sun appear red. In order to get the clearest images possible, I take my images in monochrome. After, stacking and post processing, the final step is adding color. A dedicated mono camera is much better suited for this. Plus it has other controls such as gamma which my color camera does not. Stretching out the gamma is how you make flares visible. I don't have gamma control so I crank up the exposure to bring the flares out. This requires more clean up work in post processing.

[Bruce D]

Makes sense Tim, so where do you get the color, are you stacking rgb frames?

[TimW]

Makes sense Tim, so where do you get the color, are you stacking rgb frames?

No, the color is added in Photoshop. Using the level adjustment I add certain amounts of red, green and blue to give it that yellow color. Every hydrogen-alpha photo that shows the sun as being yellow, has been false colored in some way.

[Pete]

Actually it's white light. So our new mono setup is probably most accurate anyway.