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Eclipse time lapse - 12" Meade ACF at f/5 with Orion G26 camera

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#1 dcaponeii

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Posted 11 April 2024 - 06:39 AM

The 12" data has been tough to process.  The clouds and haze have precluded batch processing to a large extent in both AS!4 and in Wavesharp.  Even so, there are still some stacking artifacts on a couple of the images with clouds or haze present, even with manual processing of individual frames.  Some of the better frames I'll be working on today.  There have been lots of lessons learned but I'm not totally disappointed in the results.  For August 2045 if I travel with a scope I'll try and be less mesmerized by the spectacular event that is a total eclipse and remember to bracket exposures during totality to better bring out the corona but also to not blow out the prominence eruptions in others. Was sure a lot of fun to work from the backyard and on the plus side running a continuous video capture through the entirety of totality left me time to just stand in awe at what must be one of the greatest displays the sky offers to the naked eye.

 

Here is a highly compressed GIF as a pointer.

 

animated_w200h200c255.gif

 

Here is the link to a 1200px square apng in the gallery: https://www.cloudyni...07_13621024.png

 

I noticed I got the return of the Sun after totality with the filter back in place is out of position relative to the rest of the frames.

 

Also of note, I started the ser capture and left it run while removing the solar filter.  This of course drove Firecapture a bit crazy but using PIPP I generated .tif images of each frame in the video and then stacked clusters of 150 frame in AS!4 of the areas of interest.  Unfortunately, the excessive exposure levels precluded teasing out Baliley's beads from ether end of totality (I've not given up yet but the area is pretty blown out.)


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#2 BQ Octantis

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Posted 11 April 2024 - 07:46 AM

Congrats!

 

As an improvement, I would recommend tighter alignment and closer equalization between frames.

 

Here in Kerr County, we had 188% cloud cover that kicked in at totality, so I only got a momentary glimpse of the corona at totality. So I just made lemon juice with the 9 pre-totality frames I captured.

 

 

BQ


Edited by BQ Octantis, 11 April 2024 - 07:47 AM.


#3 dcaponeii

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Posted 11 April 2024 - 12:02 PM

Thanks for the suggestion. Sorry you got clouded out. Here in Dallas I had only gotten a few pre-totality images through holes in the clouds but then about 30 min or so before totality it was like the hand of God wiped all the clouds away. They all came back about 30 min after totality but we had clear skies for totality itself. Of course I forgot to bracket me exposures!!! Working on tighter groups of frames now.

#4 epsilon160

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Posted 11 April 2024 - 06:19 PM

Nice work Don. Looking forward to seeing your individual frames. 
 

I didn’t bracket for fear of missing either diamond ring or Bailey’s beads. I also was afraid of overloading my DSLR’s buffer and chose 2 second intervals.

 

All in all I’m happy with what I got - definitely worthy of a framed enlargement.

 

My pre-totality frames show a white disc and a sunspot and yours show a yellow disc plus lots of detail and texture. I assume this is due to my choice in using a Mylar filter?



#5 dcaponeii

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Posted 16 April 2024 - 02:38 PM

Nice work Don. Looking forward to seeing your individual frames.

I didn’t bracket for fear of missing either diamond ring or Bailey’s beads. I also was afraid of overloading my DSLR’s buffer and chose 2 second intervals.

All in all I’m happy with what I got - definitely worthy of a framed enlargement.

My pre-totality frames show a white disc and a sunspot and yours show a yellow disc plus lots of detail and texture. I assume this is due to my choice in using a Mylar filter?


Not really. The color of the Sun is a function of how you adjust R, G and B in the histogram. “White Balance” creates white for the Sun because that is a function of the algorithm. However, at the bottom of our atmosphere as a result of blue wavelengths scattering we see the Sun as a yellow disk. Even in space the spectral and Luminosity class of the Sun, namely G2V, results in a yellow-white disk. Thus it is not really appropriate to apply a white balance step in Solar imaging (in my opinion). I prefer the yellow.

#6 Lopper

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Posted 16 April 2024 - 10:20 PM

Nice work, Don! I know a lot of effort goes into making timelapse videos. And a lot of clicking. Thanks for sharing.

 

Matt


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