ShahGazer Rambling about Astrophotography, Coding and Clouds

This is the edited version from the previous 6.5 days old moon mosaic. I've pushed up the levels, curves and brightness to reveal more features, especially towards the terminator.

This is another moon mosaic. A total of 30 individual video files, stacked with Autostakkert, and merge in Photoshop. Unfortunately a couple of frames were way off focus. I should have check it much more closely during each shot. The moon's tone was also a bit tricky. I need to readjust slightly for almost half the video files, in order to avoid saturation. That however, created another headache in Photoshop, where I need to readjust the brightness again and again.

Finally, after almost a day of stacking and combining in photoshop, this is it. My latest Moon mosaic, from 21 individual video files.  I am very happy with the results, not perfect, but by far the most satisfying so far. Images were taken using the following equipment Skywatcher 120ED, f/15 (2x barlow) QHY IMG132E camera. EQ6 mount. Click HERE for the 'almost' full size. I'm not sure why when I uploaded to blogspot, the size were reduced when we click on the image above.

The many faces of AR 1520. Since the 6th of July, I've been blessed with good weather (somewhat), and managed to get a series of photo shots on the sunspot. Well, I missed the 11th, due to cloudy sky all day long. So, here there are in starting from the 6th until today. Note: prior to 8th July, spaceweather labelled this group as AR1529.  Or did I mistaken it with the smaller spot leading the group?

Ok, this one is huge! It nearly knocks my socks off when I took this video yesterday morning. The news at Spaceweather.com took me quiet a surprise, because the day before, it didn't appear anything special. Probably it was still on the other side of the limb. Fortunately, I recorded the emergence of AR1519 on the 6th of July, even though it was still unnamed at SDO/HDI website. It was interesting when +Peter Lake pointed out on my post in G+, that this spot could be the similar like the one in 1859 super flare. Well, let's see if it holds its greatness for the next few days.

Sunspot AR1515 is evolving nicely. This is a quick compilation of 4 days (missed a few in between). Hope I can get a complete set until the group disappear. 

I would have to admit, solar imaging was always alien to me. I never could get a decent image using my old Toucam, Mallincam or DBK cameras. In fact I was so frustrated that I sold off my Coronado filters to a good friend of mine. Recently I got the chance to review a camera from QHY, called IMG132E. Check out the detail at QHY website. After a few test shots (on the Sun), I was totally blown away. The image was crisp and clear. Even when viewing live using the software provided, I was really impressed. And these are all through a Baader filter! Here a some of the images posted previously on my Google+. Wow! I could clearly see the granulation on the sun. The 'tentacles' in the sunspots were easily seen. These photos were stacked from a video capture in SER format. I'm not too sure why AVI does work. Stacked using AutoStakkert