The Sun in Hα

I imaged the Sun using a Lunt LS35T Solar Scope combined with a webcam for hydrogen alpha and a MC 102/1300 with ND3.8 and K-line filter combined with a Canon 1100D, both mounted on an EQ3. While far from ideal setups (like full spectrum sensor), I managed to capture some nice shots.

The Hα disk is a mosaic of 8 frames: the solar scope has a very annyoing vignettation. A total of 20 GiB video data was filmed. Eruptions come from the same raws, edited separately and then added to the disk.

The K line images are a stack of 15 photos shot with the DSLR powered by Magic Lantern.

I detail the process below showing the stages of the imaging session in pictures. Processig was done in Canon Digital Photo Professional (raw->tiff16), Registax6 and GIMP.

Mosaic frame 1

Mosaic frame 2

Mosaic frame 3

Mosaic frame 4

Mosaic frame 5

Mosaic frame 6

Mosaic frame 7

Mosaic frame 8

Mosaic stitched. Vignettation artifacts still evident

Checking for eruptions

The dynamic range of the picture wouldn’t allow me to process all data together

So extracting the eruptions to a layer

The disk: trying to make it more uniform

Trial: looks bad

Trial, looks bad

Still bad

The finished picture in red

Sum of the R and a G channel obtained from R via curving, accepted as final output

Eruptions

Eruptions, bw from R

The Sun in K line

framing…

The Sun in K line colored