Quark Testing

[Starry Jack]

I was able to test the Quark Chromosphere, but I got a little mixed up between snapshots, unexpected visitors and family. The two images below do represent sequential snapshots...and I'm pretty sure I documented the correct progression of Quark settings. The detentes on the Quark are not super sure so it appears I can set the Quark at major and minor detentes. Lastly, the images are small so details are small but the banding regions are very clear.

Lastly lastly, I used SharpCap to take 1) Snapshot, 2) Capture with Stretch and then 3) Snag-it to capture the entire window including settings.

I'll have to repeat the test but I'd like any advice before I try it again.

Thanks,
Jack

2019-08-18_15-54-39 Summary of Quark Testing Neg 1 to 0 to Pos 5.png (697.78 KiB) Viewed 1293 times

2019-08-18_15-36-55 Summary of Quark Testing Smaller.png (2.96 MiB) Viewed 1293 times

[MAURITS]

Nice to see Jack.

[marktownley]

Looks to me like there's a couple of things going on there;

1) The Quark has a bright patch on the left of frame regardless of setting.
2) I used to get that horizontal banding with my IMX249 camera.

The good news, a bit of tilt will cure the latter, then if you do a flat too it will cure the slightly uneven illumination of the Quark and also any residual banding not cured by tilt. Maybe try the flat option in that software if it doesn't kill the frame rate.

My other piece of advice would be to not use that histogram stretch during capture, concentrate on that in post processing - doing it in capture will just result in you having data on the limit of clipping that you then take into post processing.

One other observation - you have a setting 'brightness' - not being familiar with the capture software but knowing what this likely is; it more than likely sets the black point of the camera. You have it on maximum, which will raise the black point up to about 20(ish) in a histogram with 256 shades of grey. These bottom 20 levels are just going to be noise you're introducing into the image, try it on zero.

Hope this helps

Mark

[Montana]

Looks like neg2 or neg3 is your setting of choice. Can't quite decide which is better but neg3 the bright areas are mostly either side of the field of view. You could do with a nice filament to help with contrast. That is a good test, you can see how heating moves the centre line across the field from right to left.

Alexandra

[Starry Jack]

Thank you for the comments.

Mark,
-Thank you for looking at my settings and making recommendations

-I will obtain a tilter from Daystar per your advice

-I will set brightness to 0 per your advice

-I will use Flats once my testing is over...agreed. I did do a test, and the SharpCap flat feature kept the framerate still at 132fps!

-Glad to hear the banding is not an unexpected result with this chip

-In SharpCap, stretching the Histogram only impacts the view on the monitor rather than the actual capture. You can look at the first image above (the one with the small images) and see that the nearly plain flat-grey images are the "true, non-stretched" captures. Now there is also a button in SharpCap in the Histogram box which lets me save the image as per what I see on the screen. So my workflow was 1) Capture the "raw" image (which were universally disappointingly monotone blahs; 2) Capture the "stretched" "what you see is what you get" image; 3) Perform a Screen Capture of the monitor image and the settings in the software. So each test moment had 3 images to compare.

Alexandra,
-Thank you for interpreting my results...frankly...I could not read the tea leaves with anything meaningful

-What do you mean, "You could do with a nice filament to help with contrast."? You mean it would be nice to have a solar filament in the FOV to gauge the test better?

My best to you all,
Jack

[allhoest]

Hi,

Any tilt ring should be good for the job for tilting the sensor.

Personally, I use a "handcraft" made one.
It has a ring for quick adjustment of the tilt angle.
See attached pics.

Your quark looks promising.







CS
Alex

[Montana]

Yes, you need a good solar feature on the disc like a filament or active region to truly gauge the bests results for the test.

Alexandra

[Starry Jack]

Thanks Alexandra. I look forward to a larger feature. I will say, in moments of good seeing, I do see lovely flashes of detail...it.gives me hope even if it drives me nuts.

Alex, brilliant DIY unit.

[MapleRidge]

Hi Jack...

Nice review of your tests. I can't really add any suggestions to any already posted, but I look forward to the progression of the tests.

Brian