Imaging the Sun

I am so bad at processing solar images... if you have tips and tricks, please let me know in the comments!
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[@rayhodel8069]

Cuiv, I hope you are feeling better soon and posting new videos. I miss them and your enthusiasm.

[@psuaero100]

Glad to see your back again. I hope you're healing well with little to no pain!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Some pain, but manageable!

[@RaysAstrophotography]

Congratulations Cuiv! Glad to see you are getting better.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks Ray!

[@anthonygraham6449]

Glad to see you back and ok!

[@trevorgreen2232]

Another excellent presentation ...So good to see you up and about and recovering.

[@JonnyBravo0311]

Congrats on hitting 10k subs! Glad to see you're recovering from the accident, too. Clear skies :)

[@JoesAstrophoto]

Congratulations Cuiv! It's great to see you moving around again and getting better! Cool image as well.

[@NebuloCity]

Congrats, Cuiv! And hope you get well soon!

[@oscpe262]

Great to see your health improving! Keep fighting! 💪

[@stelaras1]

Dude sending you positive energy and get well soon 🤞

[@grabbit9215]

Happy to see your new video again. 😁

[@nn1982in]

Congrats on getting to the 10k! I am sure in no time you will reach a 100k mark and even more. Glad to see you recovering well. Take care and get well soon.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you so much!

[@AstroSoundscape]

The brace must be very frustrating to Cuiv, you always seem to be in high spirits though. Speedy recovery. Enjoyed the final image👍

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks Ollie :D

[@TheUrbanAstronomer]

That's a beautiful image Cuiv.. congratulations on 10K!!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you!

[@robcalfee]

Glad you are feeling better! In a couple of weeks, I'll get my Lunt solar scope so this is timely!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

That's awesome!! Enjoy your scope!

[@siegfriednoet]

Congratulations Quiv with the 10k subs and good to see that your back is improving To bring in more depth in the image it works well in PS with dodge and burn

[@tichwykes]

Nice to see you back hope you're getting better, I only image with PST's so I can't get the resolution of your monster Coronado lol, but how I colourize mine is simply open the image in photoshop then open up colour balance & simply move the red & yellow sliders to what you want.

[@prnzssLuna]

Grats on the 10k. You definitely deserve them! I'm glad that you're recovering, be it slowly, but hey. Progress!. Get better :-) I was actually wondering when you'd use the Solarscope, I remember seeing you unbox it like 1 year ago, then I've never seen it again :D. Nice to see you put it to use

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Slow recovery, but recovery nonetheless! I've actually used it quite a bit for visual, but not enough for sure!

[@explorelearnshare8222]

Congrats on 10K and you're looking even better! Your personality seems to be back at full strength! When you said pushing the red was making the image soft, my first thought was maybe use the original mono image as a lum over the new color image? No idea whether that would help, but hey, it would be the first mistake I would make, er, thing I would try! So happy to see you looking so much better.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

That's a great idea! I'll have to try that!

[@descendants-of-asaph]

Nice video! Keep up good work. Notice you are still using Autoskakkert, have you checked out Astrosurface Quasar-2? It's an excellent piece of software by some French developers for planetary imaging. I use it all the time now - it's a one stop shop effectively replacing AS! and Registax wavelets. Take care!

[@figzastro-photography]

Hey. Glad your doing better. Good video.

[@destrukcionist]

Hope your back will get better soon. Best wishes from Slovenia

[@olly7248]

Thanks for that, interesting stuff and get well soon 👍🏻

[@unclesly2465]

WOW! What a beautiful channel you have :)

[@salomon1639]

great to see you back

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks Salomon!

[@adam.51]

Congratulations on 10,000 subscribers! Well deserved. You’re looking much better which is great. Lifting no more than 2kg is a hell of thing to have to put up with. It must make shopping tricky. One bag of carrots? Fine. Two bags of carrots? Not unless you want to make two trips! Hopefully you’ll be able to resume all your normal activities soon (and the abnormal ones like paragliding. Eeeek!).

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

That's exactly that when I go grocery shopping!! :(

[@adam.51]

It must be very frustrating. I’ve never gone quite as far as you but even minor back issues can be quite debilitating. Just to add, I’m using NINA all the time now thanks to your tutorials. It’s great! I haven’t got a fancy auto focuser yet but it’s only a matter of time. I especially love plate solving and the framing assistant.

[@karcoms]

Hey Cuiv, Loving your videos. Hope you are feeling better. Learning new things everyday. In one of your videos you had mentioned a special tool to screw and unscrew the filter glass from its holder. I'm finding it difficult to screw and unscrew the 2" filters from the Astromechanics Adapter. Hence wondering if there is an easier way to do it.

[@franckmalterre6087]

Well done Cuiv

[@pamelawhitfield4570]

Great to see you up and about 😁 Good to see you getting results with the AZEQ5... Unfortunately I’m now benched until 2 big spine ops are out of the way as I can’t lift and set up my imaging rig - a familiar problem. Rather sucks but that’s life 🤢

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Oh my word, take good care. Fingers crossed!!

[@pamelawhitfield4570]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek many thanks 😊 I got over a previous neck fusion op so not a total unknown

[@stephanegrosjean4990]

I never realized you can manage darks and flats with autostakkert! You should try the double stack reference option in it for solar, it’s there for that mostly.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks for the tip! I will try that next time!

[@Raiden819]

Hi Cuiv, I find your videos really well explained and for NINA there is a new 3 Point Polar Alignment. I hope you could make a video about it :-) and explain it... :-) I like the way you explain things. Many greetings from Germany Chris

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Oh wow, I didn't know that, I have to check it out!

[@jimmythechicken4802]

For removing gradients on the sun, you might want to try a function degree 1 ABE in Pixinsight :)

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Yep! I will try that :) Thank you!

[@przemekmajewski1]

Hey Cuiv! Sorry to hear about your back! About the issues with the flats -- I do think the method is faulty. Once having defocused your scope you definitely change the distances of the field stops and are changing the flat field! Try not changing the focus (never) and use an LED panel with white light (some should pass through the scope) and take a flat/darkflat pair as in DSO approach! I'm curious if that would help, quite sure it's the correct way.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Panel with light won't work on a solar filter! Also, believe it or not, but changing the focus doesn't matter for flats (to some extent) At least for dust motes!

[@przemekmajewski1]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek If dust motes are on some filter in constant distance from sensor. Then not! However, vignetting from tubes and field stops will change a lot with distance! Is there really so little Ha signal in the balck body spectrum? With DS Ha filters my LED panels still work great.

[@astroworldcreations2047]

Great video as always. Good luck with your back! You seem to be very successful with your Solarmax 90mm. Can you share some of the reasons why you went with the Colorado and not with an equivalent Lunt? I am looking into adding a solar scope to my setup, and am somehow drawn to the front-end tilt-tuning etalons more than the back-end pressure-tuning etalons, but somehow it seems that Lunt is a bit more popular?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you! So there is one reason and one reason only I went with the Solarmax: price! To be honest, if the price had been the same, I'd have gone the Lunt way, because the pressure tuner looks easier to deal with. I got to tell you, trying to rotate the front etalon tuner while looking through the eyepiece requires quite a bit of gymnastics. The best could simply be the Quark Chromosphere along with a 100mm+ refractor. But the Quark apparently has quite a bit of variability, e.g. it's the astro-lottery as always...

[@derekderek2570]

I know you're not artsy, but Dylan had a great video about turning your astro images into 3D images a few months ago and I bet it would look really awesome with this!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Would be pretty cool! But mapping lightness wouldn't really work for the Sun (and I don't even really like it for nebulae), so I would need someone else in Europe for instance to be taking a picture of the Sun in H-Alpha at the same time AND properly tuned. Huh, that could be fun!

[@ergio1]

Awesome mate, very nice! Well done… how long to go with that device? hope to see you 💯 % better soon

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

one more month of that device, but then I still need to get the titanium rods out of my spine (second surgery, which can happen at the earliest in October). It's hard to function with those titanium rods in, as they really limit how much my back can bend...

[@astrobob9432]

Great to see you up and walking! You are a valuable resource to astrophotographers, maybe consider staying away from parasailing for a bit? Perhaps you could look at sailplanes, much safer.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Unfortunately I'll be paragliding again as soon as I can safely do so... It's just... something I need to do. Sailplanes look awesome, but don't really exist in Japan...

[@astrobob9432]

I understand. Flight of any kind is awesome.

[@christiangloor6504]

Great to see you are getting better. Regarding the gradient, is it not just due to the fact that you are after all taking a picture of a sphere? The edges will gradually get darker as as you inverted the pictures, it makes your lower left corner brighter. I see nothing to be corrected there.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Makes sense :D

[@darkwood777]

You should maybe keep your combined subs within as short of a time as possible to eliminate blurring from motion on the Sun. I would try to keep the subs within 15 to 30 seconds instead of 2 minutes. Glad to see you up and working with the telescope.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks for the tip! I didn't realize that movement on the surface of the Sun happened so quickly - so without wanting to by taking more frames I blurred the features. I may try cutting to video to the first 20 seconds, and stacking only 5% of that, see what that gives me!

[@alcosound]

Surprised to hear about your accident. Wishing a speedy and complete recovery. I was surprised to see that Autostakkert supports darks and flats (didn't realize it when I tried my first planetary images). Does it make any real difference? Regarding rotation, the Sun rotates every 27 days, so you can easily record for 3-4 minutes of video without a need for derotation like on Jupiter where more than three minutes is pushing it.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

That was my logic as well, the problem apparently being that the filaments themselves move and can blur the small details if exposure is taken for too long!

[@sneakerset]

Thanks,Cuiv. Tips and tricks? Solarchat/forums.

[@riaandewinnaar5040]

Better be good... You'll never make it in hell if the sun is too hot ;)

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I'll have to do my best not to end up in hell then :)

[@TheFlyingScotsmanTV]

did someone stall their wing paragliding ? hope u get well soon (20 year PGers, 16 year paramotorist)

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Well, I didn't stall my wing, but unwittingly chose a landing spot right in rotor because of complacency on my part. Glider felt unresponsive after I entered the turbulent zone, and I was too stiff on the controls, likely bleeding the wing of airspeed (also, rotor, the wind was really weird. Rotor-ish wind from the side with some wind from the riverbed from the front). Close to the ground the wing shot forward and while I attempted to flare to catch it I ended up smashing into the ground as a pendulum does :(

[@Steve_The_Ignorant_Astronomer]

Damn what happened to you , hope you are ok,,, I have had 3 back surgeries the last one work in 2004

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Paragliding accident - it will take time, but I'll be fine!

[@Steve_The_Ignorant_Astronomer]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek wow lucky you. Guess you landed a bit hard

[@DrawsACircle]

Hope you are doing ok Cuiv - it’s been a while now.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Still alive - I haven't had the heart to do AP much these days...

[@astronomynotebook]

Oh you are looking in better shape....don’t forget to get plenty of milk to heal those bones...❤️😊🔭

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Milk, yoghurt, vitamin D :D

[@merc500sec]

i use Photoshop to colour it , using levels Red 1.6 Green 0.8 Blue 0.2

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you! I will try that in Gimp!

[@merc500sec]

Cool , I had to add rgb in PixinSight, as that little program you shared for sharpening, which is awesome, seems to grey scale it

[@davidaylsworth8964]

Keep getting healthy.

[@TheJerryRN]

Found a fellow cloudy nights member who posted this video a few years ago….fantastic for Solar imaging ….kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJuVhq2vnc-piKc Cuiv… hang in there…I broke my back as well…snow skiing lol.

[@anthonygraham6449]

Your fans are concerned about you. How’s the recovery going?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Still alive - I've been a bit in a slump... Sorry for making you all worried!

[@anthonygraham6449]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek stay strong. You will get thru this!

[@stephen2615]

Us Aussie haters like this..

[@NeilW210]

Hi Cuiv, I think I may have sent you this link on solar imaging & processing before kzbin.info/www/bejne/fV6XYoWDiaiXiqc He illustrates a fairly simple method of achieving colour in PS toward the end of the presentation. Good to see you getting better.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you! I need to buy PS at some point..

[@NeilW210]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek I'm sure you can ultimately achieve the same in PixInsight, put PS's layers make it a lot easier. This guy has a couple of more recent videos where he uses the same IMPPG software that you do to sharpen the image. Previously he used Registax to achieve this.

[@bhhb3238]

.

[@ChrisTurchin]

Hope your back is recovering, i was doing solar today too but my ED80 and 20 Euro filter just doesn't do it justice. Clear skies!