Solar Granulation
20170522, Jerusalem
Meade 10" Classic + Astrosolar D 3.8, 720nm near IR filter, ASI174MM camera.
Acquisitions with FireCapture 2.5, 8 bit SER, shutter 1 ms, gain 130 (32%),
gamma 1, histogramm =83%, time 06:41 to 08:15 UT.
SSMonitor recorded
automatically SER files when seeing was not too bad. Registration of individual
SER files with AS!3.
Of course aspect changes completely on this time span and without the sunspot
there
would
be
absolutely no way to align the frames !
Due to bad seeing I had to remove
a couple of frames ... 75 kept out of 78 !
Result frames were registered with RegiStax5 using prefilters around the central
sunspot, saved as AVI then selected in VirtualDub, exported to PNGs,
Cubed in
StarMax,
level and gamma again in VirtualDub, before final conversion to GIF using PIPP.
Animation shown here at 50% size ... needs about 30s to download !
Click on animation for full size GIF (visible in navigator but 92 MB !) or
if
you can download .AVI (xvid
21 MB) or .MOV (
7 MB).
Interesting : during this
long acquisition time, the sunspot expands (registration
was on the center one) and you see the little dot moving towards to top left
!
20170518, Jerusalem
Same setup as on May 14.
Today there the little sunspot AR2656 is today a bit farther from the limb
and can be used to align the 40 min animation ...
without a sunspot as reference, as all the structures change
radically in a few min it is all but possible to align !
See end of page example @ La Palma ...
Below is the general aspect registered from a good seeing sequence (10h56
LT / 7h56 UT) ...
Click on images for full size...
GIF animation of about 40 min real time
...
Word of caution :
Please be patient, files are large as quality
must
be
preserved
as much as possible !
Animations will play at normal speed only after complete download.
GIF animation of about 40 min real time
but all frames have been cubed pixel by pixel !
You can see better that there are 3 kinds of moving structures :
small dots, granulation & a kind of little dark patches !
Around the sunspot full size ...
I have the feeling that the sunspot is surrounded by dots moving
away from it ?
What are those large structures seen
in dark, is it waht is called super granulation ?
Below is an highlighting
...
Click on the image to see the mask extracted and colorized.
Now, if interested, you can study this on the original live video (at speed of acquisition 42 FPS) :
Link for compressed GIF file (140 MB = 15 min download at 150 KB/s).
Right click as "'Save link as..." for
original uncompressed SER
file (280 MB = 35 min download at 150 KB/s).
The SER files can be played / edited / converted with SER-Player freeware from
Chris
@
Astro-PIPP
website !
Filename=SUN_IR720_105646_180517__SSSM_3.0.ser
Date=180517
Mid(UT)=075646.351
Frames shown here=121
File type=SER
FPS (avg.)=42
Shutter=2.000ms
Gain=86 (21%)
Gamma=1
SSSMon best seeing=0.54
20170514, Jerusalem
After many trial in Continuum, UV and K-Line, I was told about possible better results in Red light. As I have no Red filter under hand, I used a 720 nm near IR filter instead ...
Setup : Meade 10 Classic
with front aperture Baader D3.8 filter, SSM = Solar Scintillation Monitor,
3x 1 1/4 Televue barlow FL~7500mm),
Near IR chinese 720 nm filter fitted with special ring, ZWO ASI 174MM B&W
camera, JMI motorized focuser.
FireCapture 2.5, 8 bit SER, 51 avg. FPS, shutter 3.5 ms, gain 50 (12%), gamma
1, histogramm =71%, time Mid = 052037 UT .
Clic
on picture for full size (Full HD 1080p)
Processing to get this image :
The original movie it has been first
contrasted in SER-Player (gamma 0.10 & gain 140),
registered in AS!3 (2858 AP size 48), sharpened with 25% blend RAW, then Wavelets
in RegiStax6 (025-100-146), slight crop in IrfanView..
MUST SEE :
Please
clic on a link below to see a Full HD 1080p High-Resolution view
of solar
granulation ... as if seeing it live !
AVI
for PCs or MOV
for APPLE
I have never seen this on the Internet ...
Very good seeing video
showing at
acquisition
speed
(66
FPS) most of the FOV of the ASI 174MM (registered with RegiStax6, 100 AP then
saved as AVI) !!
If you have slow Internet there is below for you the small
video to give you an idea :
I shown the
surface of the Sun at high resolution during rather rare very
good
seeing
(SSSMon
best
seeing
=0.49) in near IR (720
nm) !
The GIF movie below is a very small part, not registered - moreover
slightly reduced size -
of the FOV of the ASI 174MM sensor as the original
full size
movie for 20s recording was ~2.2 GB !
Notes on PIPP GIF conversion parameters
to stay < 5 MB ::
Neural-Net Quantisation Algorithm, Smaller file size, unchanged Border tolerance
5,
Transparent pixel tolerance unchecked, reduced Color table bit Depth 6,
lossy compression level 20,
resulting GIF size of this little animation = 4975 KB.
Below the aspect seen on the
monitor during acquisition (as played here later with SER-Player) ...
until a new FireCapture version
would enhance the low contrast flux in live ... already setup with gamma
1 !
This would also permit tracking on hard to see solar features !
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A session aborted by cloud arrival (20150610) then
missing sunspot 2365
Seeing not bad ...
Of course those are not great
images from granulation but it is what I can get with a standard LX200GPS.
Extraordinary images can be obtained with top equipment, in good seeing with
specialized solar Newtonian telescopes, by experimented solar astrophotographers
as here.
Click
for full size
Sun : FujiFilm HS10 + 1.5x extender + visual solar Baader
mylar. 6 x Fuji RAF RAWs aligned with PiPP & RegiStax5 in CG mode.
Granulation : LX200GPS 12" + 2.5x Barlow (FL = 7.500mm) + Baader D3.8
solar photo filter + Baader Continuum filter + 2 x Baader
IRCut + ASI174MM camera
at full
size,
gamma 0
Each image result after AS!2 (25% best) of a 1 min 8 bit SER file (Firecapture),
processing Astra Image LRD 150'17i and levels 9456..43862
Bonus:
Single frame
Clip available in
XVID
compression 3 showing seeing (100MB, right-click to download)
An interesting session (20150518) click for full size
Acquisition : FireCapture 2.4
Focusing is difficult !
Registration AS!2 (10%
best kept for top and middle images, 30% for bottom image)
Enhancement of features : Astra Image 3.0 Lucy Richardson deconvolution
(Img1=LRD070'13i, Img2= LRD080'13i, Img3=LRD140'6i then stretching)
Colorization GIMP2 (Map, sample colorize from another Halpha picture)
Note : The sky was perfectly clear
but is was a windy morning ! I had to wait for some rather quieter moments
to start captures.
Also the rolling shutter of
the ASI120MM made strange wobblings at high magnification (with the 2.5x
Powermate).
It is the reason I switched for the ASI174MM which has not this problem.
What king of quality in the originals captures ?
With 2.5x barlow : A good frame ... Only part of it
are rather good !
click for GIF showing about
100 frames (interesting but 48MB download) in full
size
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The beautiful lacework of sunspot 1515 ! This is my best picture in white light, I guess because the sun is very high Summer solstice ...
Even more penombra resolution after putting lots of APs on the sunspot ...
Reference images to see how fast the granulation changes
(Sources : http://www3.kis.uni-freiburg.de/~pnb/granmovtext1.html)
Animations (from SVST, La Palma) rate is 2 frames per second at total duration is like above, 147s (7*21s)
