This is from the first solar session with the 105mm AP Traveler and SBIG STL11000M CCD, taken on 16-Apr-04.
The high quantum efficiency of this camera required the use of additional filtering to place the signal below saturation level at the minimum exposure setting of 0.01 seconds. This has been since addressed and corrected courtesy of Matt L (SBIG software/engineering), who has generously written a driver patch allowing for a reduction to 0.001 seconds. Additional filtering is no longer required, as can be noted in the 29-Apr-04 solar image. The above image required use of a polarizing pair.
Note the spicule structure surrounding the circumference of the disk, a level of detail present in the eyepiece but that had eluded my previous equipment's abilities to capture via imaging. A very wide dynamic range allowed a single image to become the basis for this picture, processing it through two divergent paths: normal for the surface features and one with boosted gain for the fainter prominences.
Image Info: SBIG STL11000M CCD, Coronado Solarmax90/T-Max, and 30mm blocking filter attached to an Astro-Physics 105mm Traveler via a TeleVue 2X Powermate. Processing was done in Images Plus and final polishing in Adobe PhotoShop. |
