First Posting

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Jordan Konisky
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First Posting

Post by Jordan Konisky »

I have finally reached a stage in my imaging to feel comfortable enough to post my first image on “This Is Solar Chat.” It was captured on July 3. SW ED 100 (masked to 50mm), Lunt CaK B1800, ZWO 1600mm), SharpCap, Autostakkert (100/400), ImPPg for sharpening and Photoshop for coloring.

Had several issues along the way and so appreciate the help I received from members of the SCF community. Thank you all so much for sharing your expertise and experience as I crawled up the learning curve.

Would appreciate any comments on sharpness and coloring or anything else. At this point I need your honest critiques so that I can improve.

Jordan

ImageCaK July 3 2021 (3) by Jordan Konisky, on Flickr

ImageCaK July 3 2021 (2) by Jordan Konisky, on Flickr


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Re: First Posting

Post by Montana »

These are fantastic Jordan :bow :hamster: love the colour and the sharpness is not to bad. One thing I would do is crop the image so the Sun is in the middle. Also, not sure whether this has happened in post processing or capture but the plage in the main AR is a bit over exposed. This is easy to do in CaK. If you capture the image much darker than you think, the plage won't be blown out. If the capture was OK, and it happened after, then in post processing try not to brighten too far that you over saturate the plage. You can do this by fixing the white point in photoshop so if you raise the histogram the white point stays fixed.

I hope this helps a bit. However, this is a fantastic first shot, you should be very proud.
Alexandra


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Re: First Posting

Post by eroel »

Jordan:
Very good images, second what Alexandra explains, it sure will help.
Best regards,
Eric.


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Re: First Posting

Post by DeepSolar64 »

Very,Very nice work for a first imaging post!!


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Re: First Posting

Post by Stardust5858 »

Brilliant capture. Great first post, I third what Alexandra said, lol. Thanks for sharing and look forward for more of your work.


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Re: First Posting

Post by Rusted »

Congratulations Jordan on an excellent result. :bow


Here I have tried to tone down the plage brightness in a simple image handling software. [PhotoFiltre7]
Not with complete success but this is more representative of typical CaK image posted here.
The image is also much reduced in size. There is no need to post huge files on a forum.
The forum format simply doesn't need it to show all the detail in an image.

SC reprocessed.jpg
SC reprocessed.jpg (62.3 KiB) Viewed 669 times

I hope you can forgive my very clumsy efforts? ;)
Like yourself, I am very grateful for all the helpful advice I received from the members here.
Sometimes achieving our desired goals can seem insurmountable in the early stages.
Studying the real experts' images and lots of practice is a the surest way to keep on improving.


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Re: First Posting

Post by VasilevIvan »

Congratulations Jordan with first posting and nice image in CaK! :hamster:


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Re: First Posting

Post by p_zetner »

Very nice result, Jordan.
I agree with Chris in that you may want to tweak the exposure so as not to blow out the highlights in the plage regions.
Cheers
Peter


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Re: First Posting

Post by MAURITS »

Well done Jordan.


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Re: First Posting

Post by ffellah »

Nice work, specially for a first post, Jordan

Franco


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Re: First Posting

Post by Jordan Konisky »

Thank you everyone for your response to my image. Credit for the coloring should go to Mark Townley who provided me with his protocol and settings for color management in PS.

Rusted and Alexandra, I will make use of your suggestions to correct that overexposure in the vicinity of the sunspot. Alexandra, would you provide a bit more detail of how you use the PS M curve to do this. I have looked over several tutorials on making such adjustments but remain confused as to what exactly you do. I understand that you first fix the white point. But what do you mean by “raise the histogram so that the white point stays fixed.” Exactly what is being raised? I must be missing something rather obvious or intuitive.

Jordan


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Re: First Posting

Post by Carbon60 »

Excellent first images, Jordan. For sure there's some tweaking to be done, but then I'm still finding my way after years of practice!

Stu.


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Re: First Posting

Post by Montana »

I need to make some screen shots, when I get a moment I will have to explain. Pictures speak louder than words :)

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Re: First Posting

Post by Jordan Konisky »

No rush, Thanks,

Jordan


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Re: First Posting

Post by Jordan Konisky »

Here is an image from the same day series in which my SharpCap capture histogram was set to provide a slightly darker overall image compared to the image that I posted earlier. As you can see the vicinity of the sunspot is less blown out.

Image15 20 97 imppg2.5 color by Jordan Konisky, on Flickr


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Re: First Posting

Post by DeepSolar64 »

This one looks nice in the plage areas!


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Re: First Posting

Post by Rusted »

The new image is really excellent! :bow

Had I known you were hiding this image I needn't have embarrassed you with my clumsy tweaking!

You are obviously far more accomplished than I will ever be. :D


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Re: First Posting

Post by Montana »

OK, I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, but it is how I do it:

First open levels and set the black and white points to each end of the histogram so it is spread evenly
Slide 01.jpg
Slide 01.jpg (766.76 KiB) Viewed 568 times
Then open curves (CTL+M) and press the little hand (1) then go over to the white area you don't want to move and click there (2) and you will see an anchor appear at (3)
Slide 02.jpg
Slide 02.jpg (954.11 KiB) Viewed 568 times
Then go and click in a dark area you want to add contrast to and click (4) and you will see another anchor appear there (5) which is highlighted. Click your down arrow key until you think that area is dark enough. Notice the white area remains untouched as the anchor has fixed it.
Slide 03.jpg
Slide 03.jpg (960.26 KiB) Viewed 568 times
You can also do this the same in h-alpha by anchoring the pale chromosphere but only darkening the filament areas.
Slide 04.jpg
Slide 04.jpg (949.95 KiB) Viewed 568 times
You can do this any way you fancy so that plage areas don't get brighter or darker, or filaments but not plages get darker. It gives you flexibility and control.

I hope this helps :)

Alexandra


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Re: First Posting

Post by Jordan Konisky »

Alexandra,

This is perfect. Immense thanks for taking the time to provide this to me. Can't express enough how your patience and sharing of expertise over these last several months have helped me get to this stage.

Jordan


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Re: First Posting

Post by MAURITS »

Lovely second Cak colored image Jordan.


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Re: First Posting

Post by Petrus »

Wow! That is an amazing result for first CaK image.


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