Solar imaging with a small Lunt H-alpha telescope - capture and processing
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- čas přidán 20. 07. 2024
- How I image and process the whole solar disc with a 40mm Lunt
For anyone who loves their new hydrogen alpha solar telescope and are into solar disc imaging like me, I hope this can inspire some ideas about creating your own workflow or get someone started! In this video I run through setup, capture, and processing to get an inverted Sun image, which I personally like.
The photo I’ve got in this video is a sort of quick and dirty capture and edit - I was either delayed by cloud or roasting in full Sun, so I rushed and focused more on showing what I do rather than getting the best image. At the end of processing, notice how the lower right edge of the Sun is “blown out”: this is what happens when you don’t position the Sun on the disc well enough and you get gradient. It may not be an issue for you at all, but I have a smaller size filter, and need to adjust carefully before capture in order to avoid uneven looking surface.
Happy imaging and clear skies to you all. - Věda a technologie
Great workflow thank you.
I just got a Lunt 40 mm and am learning to get the best viewing with it. I am not sure if I want to get into astrophotography, but I am thinking about it. These results are amazing.
Thank you. I am an experienced astrophotographer but a beginner in solar work. I am about to purchase the 100mm Lunt.i have been using the Dwarf Lab 2 so far. I am really pleased with your guidance. Paul (UK)
I would say if you are only using the Dwarf 2 that's not exactly experienced. I'm new myself. I started with the Seestar but now I have a full astrorig and it is a lot more work than a smart scope. I added a lunt 40mm too and it's also quite difficult. It's great you are learning but don't think using a smart scope makes you experienced. It's not the same.
2023 cloudy nights, lets get a solar filter and record the Sun. First project had a very small time window. I thought I'd record the Space Station travelling across. It rained within minutes after the time. I have to console myself with an out of focus, over exposed, descent sized shot of the disk, and it's that, that will spur me on. After watching your vids a change of Software and control of my camera, will be tested over the next few days, as a new lead for pc connection has arrived, and luckily its raining for the next few days. Yes the weather has been dire.
Very informative. I've enjoyed all your videos and the explanations of what your doing and your thinking process behind it.
Another great video. Very informative and really enjoy your presentation, your personality comes through.
Great job! thank you for sharing your work with us, we appreciate it very much, keep them coming sister!
Thanks for your video showing how you image and process the sun. Your explanations are quite simple and to the point and very much appreciated!!!
Thanks!! That’s really great to hear.
Great tutorial. Very easy to follow.
The grey wet weather began in July 2023 and has gone on to February 2024.... the rain is out of hand now! However a few jems like the amazing Nacreous Clouds in December and Venus low in the morning skies.I think that 30 mm is the smallest HA Solar scope which is the Conrando one.
This is Awesome! My 50mm lunt is in the mail and I can't wait! Thank you for your hard work making great videos!
How exciting, hope you have a great time with your new Lunt! Thanks!
Brilliant presentation.
Thank you! 🙏🏼
I like your use of curves, I could never get a balance between light and dark when I inverted my image. I will have to give it a try. Thanks for the tips.
Hope it works for you!
Awesome job, very clear and straight to the point! I'm still waiting for my Lunt50 to arrive, which is a shame as this week has been a scorcher in north east Scotland with lots of sun. Bit too hot though, us astrophotographers are never happy🤣
Thanks! They do take a while to arrive on stock, which is why I grabbed the 40mm when I could. That, and £££! At least solar imaging is not a seasonal thing so fingers crossed for you!
Very helpful thank you! Excited to get started on this myself
Great video and result. One of these days I'll get a solar set up. Still debating on one of these Lunts or go the quark route. CS!
Buen trabajo, resulta muy ilustrativo y didáctico tu video, gracias por compartirlo. Saludos
Amazing tutorial.
I like your process in gimp I'm going to give it a try . Love your enthusiasm.
Thanks so much! Hope it turns out good for you.
I have not had a decent day sents the end of May !!!
Thank you for the video!
Great Job! I'm like you, don't spend ages on the processing, and like it quick........ Maybe as I get into it more, I'll start spending more time on it. I have the Lunt LS80MT scope. Oh, and great finding new channels to watch, subscribed! Look forward to seeing more of you astro journey!
Thank you! Yes I do tend to blitz through processing - I find it the least satisfying part of the whole hobby 😄 I thought I’d get chewed out but thankfully people have been really positive. Good luck to you, and fingers crossed for an ISS pass!
Excellent video.
Thank you Cellist. I too am a planetary imager and I want to get into some solar. I'm so glad you explained how to align the telescope and how you focus. What ZWO camera are you using? I hope you post some more solar videos. Thanks again. You're a great communicator.
Thank you, really glad it was helpful! This was all done with the 174mm, that’s the one I use for planetary. Good luck with the solar!
Thanks, maybe show an image done in osc then compare to mono, would be interesting to see, keep up the good work 👍
You can get some really good details even though it is only 40mm. The PST has issues with details from what I understand.
Very clear video. Will prove useful to many. I watched a video Azastroguy posted where he suggested keeping only the best 100 frames for stacking. I’ve been at solar for years but I’m always open to suggestions. I tried it and it absolutely improved my overall image editing. I love my 174 as well. The micron size is crucial for most scopes. My ASI 1600 can’t even obtain a full disc with a B1800 filter. Try IMPPG with an “inverted” histogram. Guys like Simon Tang and Deddy Dayag employ that technique.
Thanks! I haven’t had as much success with keeping such a small amount of frames, so I try and find a balance between using too few and too many - this is absolutely something that everyone will find a version that works for them. Yes I’ve tried IMPPG and I mentioned that there’s loads of different ways, but I like GIMP and wanted to show what I do in it for the sake of keeping it simple and within one software!
I enjoy your work. I like your method. You have my continued support and I recommend your channel to my club. Many clear skies.
Very well explained! 🎉
I was hoping to buy a lunt for the TSE on Apr 8th, but they are on backorder. Too late 😂. Anyway for imaging, you suggest atleast a 6mm blocking filter? Also now that you have played around with the lunt, would you suggest the 50mm or 40mm is sufficient?
Thanks! Yes unfortunately these will all be like gold dust now before the eclipse. Still, at least you don’t need a filter for the actual moment of totality! Yes even though you can still image with smaller filter sizes, I’d recommend going with 6mm and up for imaging. As for what’s sufficient, that’s up to you! I love my 40mm but if budget allowed I’d always be going larger and larger 😄 Good luck!
I just subscribed to your channel
your videos are the BEST! they are very informative and helpful thank you very much. I have a 174mm as well but am trying to decide which scope to go with. how are you liking the lunt 40 so far?
Thank you! Yes very happy with the 40mm, mine does have the helical focuser which is pretty universally hated but I don’t have problems with it. If cash was no issue, I’d go for the 60mm b1200. Good luck!
That mini telescope on your table at 5:00 is so cool! Where did you purchase it?
Thank you! I actually made it myself, from some spare bits of LEGO 😊
@@CellistOnTheRoof that’s so cool, and smart!
That's a great photo. I just spent an incredibly frustrating couple of hours while we had a nice window of clear skies to try again with solar imaging. I find aligning the scope with the sun to be very difficult. I have probably spent a good 15 hours using a 102 Mak and a DayStar Solar Scout just trying to get the sun in frame and focused with no success. I am about ready to put the solar gear up on eBay or some other site, but this video has inspired me to try again. I've been photographing wildlife for over 20 years (hobby, nothing special), so sensors and basic photography make sense to me. Throwing a 600mm lens on a gimbal head with a DSLR is familiar to me as is the idea of focus stacking and HDR. I expected more applicable crossover to astro. I was wrong. Tracking mounts are a different animal. How do you focus without throwing the scope off target? Any time I touch the focuser on any scope beyond a 135mm lens, the target gets thrown out of frame, which is why I use an electronic focuser even for a 135mm lens. The focuser won't work on the Solar Scout. I am using the new-ish SkyWatcher GTi Pro equatorial mount with the ASIAir Plus and a ZWO camera which probably has too small of a sensor for my solar needs, but it's what I have at the moment. It's been tracking and targeting well on DSOs, but the sun is a different story. Do you tighten the RA and DEC clutches after finding the sun? Will that prevent the mount from tracking or damage any belts or gears in the mount? I work hard to balance the scope, so I have not been tightening the clutches for any astrophotography. I see you have the camera in the diagonal of the scope. Is that for back focus? Is that specific to the Lunt, or should I be using the diagonal with a T2 nosepiece instead of going directly into the scope with a dedicated astro camera on any scope? At this point, lining up the sun and getting a reasonably focused image will be a win in my book. Thank you. You got a new subscriber from this.
Hi! I totally understand the frustration - been there! But don’t give up. I’ll try and answer it all now as best I can, but you may need to do some searching that’s specific to the Solar Scout because I’ve never owned that scope and don’t know what applies to it. I also have another video about setting up the Lunt, see if there’s anything helpful in there, I do talk about the parts and the focus there too!
Finding the Sun with no sort of finderscope was incredibly hard for me too. I used to do white light with a 127mm Mak or 8” SCT, and it’s incredible how hard it is to locate a giant burning ball in the sky. The secret is in the solar finderscope. In the video I mentioned you can kinda see how it works. I would recommend either setting up a small finderscope on your Mak with its own white light filter, or getting the TeleVue Sol Searcher which can be bought separately.
Yes I always tighten the clutches on the mount after balancing, that’s how it’s made to work so don’t worry about damaging it (just don’t overtighten I guess!) If you leave the clutches loose, it won’t track well.
The diagonal in the Lunt is where the actual blocking filter is housed, that’s just their design. In the Coronado PST which I used previously, it was in the main body, which is how I imagine the Solar Scout works too.
Now, I’m not really familiar with the Solar Scout, but with all the small Hydrogen Alpha telescopes, it’s worth googling for people’s experiences in achieving focus on places like Cloudy Nights etc. With my previous one, Coronado PST, I couldn’t bring it to focus because the camera sensor couldn’t get close enough. DSLRs and ZWO cameras will again have different distances to sensor, so have a search just to see what that specific telescope needs and how people have gotten around the issue. Good luck - once you find a solution, it’s all incredibly rewarding so I hope you keep it up. Also - you haven’t said what ZWO camera you’re using, but I thoroughly recommend going mono for hydrogen alpha imaging. Ha is mostly in the red channel, so if you’re using RGB, you’re essentially using a quarter of your pixels and the rest are noise!
@@CellistOnTheRoof Thank you so much! That answer about tightening the clutch just answered a huge question I have had. It makes perfect sense, but I really needed the big print for dummies answer to ease my mind. The Solar Scout comes with a bullet type sight, and even with that, I struggle. I am not mechanically inclined at all. Math was my thing, so practical use has always been a challenge. I will take a look at the other videos, seriously look at a mono planetary camera, and keep trying. Thanks again!
I like your processing at the end to suit your taste, until the very last step when it gave the sun what appeared to be the opposite of limb darkening.
Yes that’s exactly what I mentioned in the video description! Basically I rushed it and focused more on recording that really adjusting, so that’s what happens when you don’t make sure the disc falls in the optimal spot. It’s a gradient of sort that then gets “blown out” when inverted. I can’t speak for sure because I haven’t tried it, but this feels like it’s less of an issue with a larger filter such as B1200. Cheers!
I would like to get this Lunt but was wondering what blocking filter you have. Agena Astro shows the B500, B600, B1200 as options. Only the B500 is in stock. Seeing what you have done with yours, I would be happy with the capability. Thanks in advance. 😊
Hi Douglas! I have the b600. When I was buying mine, they thankfully had just the one with b600 in stock so I didn’t have to worry, but they’re so tricky to get these days. However - 40mm is quite small so I would think the b500 may still work fine with a camera like the 174mm, as you can see from the screen there’s lots of room. The Lunt etalons do suffer from lack of uniformity, from what I’ve heard! There’s a video I’ve done previously about the setup, see if there’s maybe something helpful for you there.
@@CellistOnTheRoof thank you. Yes I watched that one too. After I asked the question I saw on the agena website says the B500 is for visual. The B600/1200 are for photography. I live a short drive north for totality next April so hoping to learn enough about solar scopes to be ready by then. The Lunt scopes seem out of stock in the usual sites that I buy Astro equipment. Thanks for your help. Subscribed. 😀
How lucky, good luck for the totality next year!
Nice video. You say 10.000 frames. What settings for the frame. How long exposure ez.
Thanks! I’ve already deleted the data, but I keep the gain pretty much always at 280 for this camera, and then adjust exposure until it’s dim but all the detail still visible. For this camera, I think it’s around the 2-3ms range. Hope that helps!
How to add ROI ? ROI selection box sharpcap ???
What is the mount you have on the top of your 5 to attach the scope to?
That’s a Primaluce clamp, much better than the stock one on the mount 👍
@@CellistOnTheRoof thank you. Looks very solid and easy to work with when setting up in the dark.
Here is a video where Simon Tang shows how you can get to a fine focus on the sun with sharpCap (minute 15) czcams.com/video/5yjiC5zt-Xg/video.html&t
a image 912px x 912px ? .... 🤣😂... what do you want with this image with this size ?
Can I take you out to dinner 🎉