Technical Card - Solar
Date:	Oct. 18, 2023
Location:	Cookeville, TN
Telescope:	Coronado Solar Max III
Focal Length:	400 mm
Aperture:	70 mm
Filter:	Double-stacked Ha-etalons
Mount:	Celestron CGEM II
Camera:	ZWO ASI 224MC
Software:	ASICap, SiriL

Technical Card - Planets
Date:	Nov. 16, 2023
Location:	Cookeville, TN
Telescopes:	Celestron C11
Focal Length:	2800 mm
Aperture:	279 mm
Mount:	Celestron CGE
Camera:	ZWO ASI 224MC
Software:	ASICap, SiriL

Fall 2023 - Planetary/Solar Imaging

This semester one of the class projects was to image Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon, and also the Sun. Compared to most deep sky objects, planetary bodies like these are so bright that long exposures are not needed to gather enough light to see them. However, even over a few seconds, turbulence in the atmosphere can blur such images quite severely. Because of this, a different technique called 'lucky imaging' is used. This involves recording a video of what is seen through the telescope, with each short frame of the video acting as a separate image. Over the course a few minutes, many thousands of such frames can be recorded and the odds are that at least some of these will be minimally affected (hence the term 'lucky' imaging). Processing software then selects the clearest of all the recorded frames and these are then stacked together and processed to bring out the desired features

Click on the thumbnails below and scroll down to see larger versions of the final images that were created from our lucky imaging sessions. (All students in the class collaborated in recording the videos from which these images were created. Individual attributions refer only to post-processing.)

Solar Images

The movies from which these images were created were recorded using a dedicated solar H-alpha telescope. The etalon filters on this telescope let only one particular color pass, corresponding to the wavelength of light emitted by excited hydrogen atoms. This wavelength is called H-alpha, and fine tuning of th filters allows us to see interesting features on the surface of the Sun, as well as prominences around its rim.

This image was compiled from a series of images captured in October of 2023. Shown is the diverse texture of the Sun’s surface. There are patches where the surface is light, called solar faculae, on the base granulated surface. Towards the top and side of the sun solar prominences can be seen. The dark streaks (sometimes called filaments) are also prominences, but appear dark when seen contrasted against the solar photosphere.

Sun in H-alpha light #1
(Theo Kline)

Connor's image looks very similar to Theo's because the movies they used to create them were recorded consecutively within a few minutes of each other. The subtle differences are mainly due to the different approaches they used in processing them.

Sun in H-alpha light #2
(Connor Burnett)

Planetary and Lunar Images

Instructor note: Unfortunately our night planetary imaging session this semester was seriously affected by heavy cloud cover, and we only managed to get a few movies through some breaks in the clouds. The students did the best they could with this limited data, but there was still a lot of atmospheric interference that significantly degraded the image quality.

This image of Jupiter was created using a little less than 1000 of the 3000 original recorded frames. The images were stacked using sum stacking and then color calibrated. Finally, the image was enhanced using the A Trous Wavelets Transform in order to bring out the stripes along the surface while also avoiding any weird, unnatural arftifacts.

Jupiter
(Joel Watson)

To create the image of Saturn, we took a movie of the planet through a telescope typically used for planetary viewing. Next, I processed that movie in SiriL to clean up the pictures. We employed lucky imaging to only keep the best ~20% of the images. Finally, I performed an A Trous wavelet transform to make the image clear and bring out some details. Due to the turbulent atmosphere on the night of our imaging, the quality is not as high as it could be.

Saturn
(Alyssa Mannen)

After capturing thousands of images of the moon, I processed them using a software named Siril. I took the 3000 images and only used roughly 1700 of them. I used Siril to compile the images to produce this one image. I then enhanced it using a process called A trous Wavelets Transform to get this specific look. This close up of the waxing crescent moon focuses on the details to be found in the craters on its eastern edge.

Moon
(Sam Shumpert)

Technical Card - Solar

Technical Card - Planets

Fall 2023 - Planetary/Solar Imaging

Solar Images

Planetary and Lunar Images