How to photograph our Sun🌞!

In this tutorial, I'll go into different options to view and photograph the Sun, including sunspots and solar flares at different price levels. Hope you enjoy this video!
Links* to equipment used in the video:
Certified Solar (eclipse) glasses: bit.ly/461oVtj
Canon M50 Camera: amzn.to/3MZ4u7q
Tamron 100-400 EF Canon Telelens: amzn.to/45Vrc9g
Tripod: amzn.to/3XdZkt5
50mm Camera Solar Filter: bit.ly/3PcxHhX
USA/WW:
ZWO AM5 Harmonic Drive Mount (USA/WW): bit.ly/3WVs5dQ
80mm Solar Filter:bit.ly/3qAqhLc
Daystar Quark Chromosphere Filter (USA/WW): bit.ly/42D4wIc
Planetary Camera ZWO ASI 678MC (USA/WW): bit.ly/3qaZS6A
UV/IR cut filter (USA/WW): bit.ly/3CLVBtz:
Europe/WW:
Telescope (TS Photoline 80mm f/6 APO): bit.ly/2WH3Jrb
80mm Baader Solar Filter: bit.ly/46gArRR
ZWO AM5 Harmonic Drive Mount (EU/WW): bit.ly/3HTuUXt
Daystar Quark Chromosphere Filter (EU/WW): bit.ly/3UMkc8f
Planetary Camera ZWO ASI 678MC (EU/WW): bit.ly/3EnTYUg
UV/IR cut filter (EU/WW): bit.ly/3qHyihD
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Any support is highly appreciated, thanks!
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[@farangisgorbanpour4034]

Lots of love from London❤️❤️❤️🇮🇷🇬🇧

[@joshhead9368]

That was cool AF. Thanks man.

[@rudyamaya2532]

Excellent video! Looking into starting a setup.

[@woody5109]

Another great video, thanks for sharing

[@davidnelmsesq]

The film you took of the smart phone sun has a bird transiting it at 3:06. Two frames. Pretty nice catch, actually. And if it's aliens cleverly disguised as a bird so much the better.

[@AstroCrescent]

Very nice comparison 👍🏼.

[@philipchesleyiii]

I use the Nikon Coolpix p1000 with a NiSi solar filter. 3000mm FF equiv. Works pretty good. But can only do white light. Cant do H-alpha unfortunately. Cant afford all that fancy rich people stuff 😂

[@sauplink7975]

Any videos on what you captured?

[@Naztronomy]

Baader solar film was the first one I used over a decade ago. Caught the Venus transit with one.

[@ShaneAndShaneGolf]

Great video thanks for sharing! Any idea what filters are availed for a dobsobian telescope? The only filters I can find are similar to the glasses, either in glass or film, which don’t give the same effect from my understanding. It shows up similar to the photo you took with the DSLR. (This is how it also showed up on my DSLR camera using an 8 stop ND filter. I quickly took photos and didn’t leave it pointing at the sun to make sure I didn’t kill my eyes or the camera sensor).

[@TheCosmicGuy0111]

Very nice!

[@siegfriednoet]

Ouch, the smartphone almost went over the railing, nice video Wido, you lined all affordable possibilities up nicely. For myself I've been using a Quark for a few years now, I really love it, though a dedicated Lunt is appealing 🙂

[@AstroForumSpace]

Tx! I like the quark because I don't need a dedicated solarscope. But I wouldn't say no to a nice big aperture Lunt 😀.

[@Oamaruastro]

Lovely video, Wido! One question for you though: how do you get your AM5 to slew right to the sun? Whenever I do it (even when I'm polar aligned) it NEVER finds the sun without my having to adjust the slew manually.

[@AstroForumSpace]

Thanks, James. Same here, I do a rough polar alignment during the day, which gets me close, and then I need to search a couple of minutes to get it in the fov of my camera.

[@erwinvanderzwan]

Hi Wido, geweldige video, ik hoop snel ook solar te doen met betere resolutie. bedankt voor sharing.

[@AstroForumSpace]

Succes Erwin en bedankt!

[@gwzapo]

You use eq mode for solar viewing/imaging? If so, can you tell me how you set it up for this during the day? Or, do you just roughly point north then slew to the sun? Thanks. I'm hoping to use my am5 this weekend for just this.

[@AstroForumSpace]

Hi there, yes. I roughly point my telescope mount in the north position and put it in the correct latitude. No polar alignment. With a startracker, I just turn my camera and focus on the Sun after that.

[@vicfrombelgium8765]

in the past i used an empty chips bag to look at the sun. it worked for me, but now i use a baader filter with mine 8" f/5 newtonian

[@AstroForumSpace]

Jummy:-)

[@maximi5499]

How did you get the DSLR to focus so perfectly on the sun? I've been practicing with a DSLR and a telephoto lens but the image is always just a bit blurry, any tips you can share?

[@AstroForumSpace]

Use the magnifying glass to zoom in when in manual focus and find some sunspots to focus on. I'm making a new video for the eclipse, should be out this week.

[@skye7690]

I put a solar filter on my WO GT 71 (with reducer) and AM5 with ASIAIR, and I could not reach focus (with ASI585MC) even with focuser all the way out.

[@AstroForumSpace]

You'll probably need an 80mm extension

[@JoeBob79569]

In the past I've just used a 10 stop ND filter on my DSLR to capture the sun. Of course you won't see solar flares with it, but it's a quick and dirty way to see sunspots. I obviously played it safe and started off at the smallest aperture, lowest ISO, and shortest exposure time, and I used the live-view mode so that I wouldn't be looking directly at the sun. But it worked pretty well. I even captured the transit of Mercury back in Nov 2019, but it wasn't even worth showing it to anyone because it was literally just a black spec on the sun, much smaller than a sunspot.

[@gregmckay666]

ND filters should never be used to view the sun visually. They do NOT block the UV rays from the sun and your eyesight can easily be damaged. I'm not sure what kind of damage using ND filters will do to your DSLR but I wouldn't chance it when true solar filters are so cheap and readily available.

[@JoeBob79569]

@@gregmckay666 I wasn't looking through the viewfinder, I was looking at the LCD screen. I'm not stupid enough to look directly at the sun! Also, I really doubt this would damage the camera, because millions (or even billions) of people photograph the sun every day, mostly unintentionally, with no ND filters. And with the 10 stop filter, I was shooting at 1/4000 of a second. Also, don't most of these DSLRs already have a UV/IR filter anyway?

[@Boekoe12]

Solar flairs are still one of the things I want to capture, sadly the daystar filters does not work on Newtonian telescopes (I believe).

[@AstroForumSpace]

No, the aperture of your Newtonian is too big for the daystar quark unfortunately.

[@Stefan-Astro-Art]

Maybe a solar scope is an option for you. I am thinking to buy the Coronado PST double stack scope.

[@gregmckay666]

There were no solar flares captured in this video. That is a solar prominence shown at around 09:15 , not a flare. Yes, there is a difference.

[@Boekoe12]

@@gregmckay666 right sorry

[@Bonn1eTheBunny1985]

It's hard to focus my Nikon p950 with a solar filter

[@AstroForumSpace]

Using an phone APP or NIKON EOS to control your DSLR instead of using the camera screen may help.

[@miodragpetkovic6142]

wido legend.

[@AstroForumSpace]

lol, thanks!

[@leonarddaneman810]

@3:06 you caught a bird's silhouette crossing the sun.

[@AstroForumSpace]

Yep, I noticed. Lots of birds in my neighbourhood 😀.

[@NVAfilm]

Now try it with samsung ultra

[@AstroForumSpace]

You'll need at least a decent telezoom lens or a telescope.