Full disc solar mosaic - April 17, 2005

Setup: Coronado SM60/BF10 H-alpha filter, Borg 100ED F6.4, IR reject filter, ToUcam web camera, Takahashi EM-10 mount (here's how this setup looks).

Webcam settings: 1/2500 sec (1/500 sec for background/prominences), 5 FPS, brightness=100%, gamma=10% (50% for background/prominences), b&w mode=ON, 640x480 pixels

Processing: K3CCDtools, Mira6, Photoshop7. Reduced to 80% of original size (2.3 arcsec/pixel) for web format. Processing described in detail here.

This is my second attempt at a full-disc solar mosaic incl. prominences. A total of twelve 60 second AVI's (6 for the disc, 6 for prominences) were acquired during a period of ~24 minutes. For this mosaic the webcam was operated in the 'color optimized non-raw' (CONR) mode which gives less image artifacts than the standard camera operating mode. Compared to my first solar mosaic attempt I have also improved my processing (mainly less sharpening, contrast and coloring) to give a more 'natural' look.

Below is shown a closeup view of the western limb, revealing good prominence details:


Here's my main page where you can see more of the pictures I have taken so far.


Comments greatly appreciated! (mikael@leif.org)