Photo of the Sun’s chromosphere in Ha (Hydrogen-Alpha). It’s the best 100 frames stacked from 2000 frames of video (“Lucky Imaging”), each frame of video 5 milliseconds. I’m still learning and new to this, have only shot 5 photos of the Sun.
Though a lot of the skills from night astro transfer over. I’m using good entry level solar gear. This level of detail cannot be done without dedicated solar etalon for Ha bandpass and energy rejection filter. Solar scopes by Lunt have both. Mylar film “solar filters” for regular cams do NOT provide this detail. And I wouldn’t do this with a regular DSLR/ Mirrorless.
Need a dedicated mono high frame rate video cam made for astro. Hydrogen-Alpha filters for night astro have nothing to do with this and will not work. If I were to start all this over, I’d actually get into solar instead of nighttime deep space photography first. I’d recommend that even more for someone who lives in a city with light pollution at night. (I live rural / dark though) I like solar because it takes about 2 min to shoot a pic like this (maybe an hour or two with setting up and tearing down the gear on the porch), whereas my night photos take all night, or several nights, so I need better weather which is rare here. It’s been 6 weeks since I shot astro at night, and in that time I’ve shot the Sun 4 different days.
And it’s THE SUN! I love the Sun. It makes life possible, and it’s been my friend since I was a small child. Galaxies and nebula are nifty, but almost an abstract concept, whereas THE SUN!… Gear: Player One Uranus-M camera on Lunt 40 mm solar scope with B1200 blocking filter, on Sky-Watcher SolarQuest Mount. (AltAz mount, doesn’t need polar aligning unlike my deep space Equatorial mount) (Though I just got a better solar/lunar camera, Player One Neptune-M camera, that I’ll be using from now on. Is also planetary cam, not dedicated solar cam, but will work better for Solar and better for Lunar. I’ll probably get to try that today.
My solar gear is portable too, compared to my night deep space gear. Software: Capture SharpCap Pro. Stacking: Autostakkert! Processing to bring out details from stacked Tiff: imPPG. Coloring and bring out more detail: SolarToolbox inside PixInsight. Cropping, contrast, and adding signature: Photoshop. Shot with ROI to give a little room for drift and for Sun’s proms. Prominence length I checked by changing Gain for a moment, they can get much longer) (Though I just got a better camera, Player One Neptune-M camera, that I’ll be using from now on. Is plaentary cam, not dedicated solar cam.
makes dedicated solar cams too, but I got these because I can also use for lunar Lucky Imaging too. AND….pixel size of cam should match for focal length you’re using, can ask Grok to do the math, I’m at 400 mm here, so if I use a 3x Barlow and go to 1200 mm I should use different camera, or shoot in Bin 2, not Bin 1 like this) The Sun is almost always shot in monochromatic and then sometimes false colored orange (since the Sun is white, or all colors, color cam isn’t as sensitive and wastes pixels.) I always include the mono original on my AstroBin post though. If you already have a refractor scope and want to DIY this to put together your own solar scope….you can get a Quark from DayStar, add an energy blocking filter AND an IR/UV filter and do it yourself. Still should be guided, but I believe solar is possible unguided for full image like this, I’ve never done it, and it’s not for closeups of Proms. (Do not try this with a large reflector like my big Quattro 250mm aperture scope I use for nebulae and galaxies at night, you’ll burn up your camera. lol)
I am adding a better focuser, Featherlight from Starlight Instruments.
Also a second etalon to double stack, I ordered it today, that will give even more detail. Double stacking gives an even narrower slice of the Ha wavelength, to give more detail. Another Sun shot I did (less great processing, I’m still learning, but the Sun was maybe more interesting that day…it changes hour to hour….The mono one is the pre-colored image. The second image is colored. It’s 2 pictures of the Sun I took 6 days apart to show how much the Sun changes in less than a week.