Solar Eclipse Party (Outreach) from Florida | Aug 21 2017

WOW!! The details you are able to get on the Sun is Amazing!!

Thank you for sharing!!!!

He cheated...

Nobody can compete with his concrete mount.

Talley wrote in post #18434236
He cheated...

Nobody can compete with his concrete mount.

What he said

congrats on the results!

This is awesome!

What I noticed and amazed with that nobody has mentioned is the fact these photos were taken with a camera that can be bought for $100-150ish. The original EOS M.

That camera is way more capable than what people make it out to be. I thought about having one just to have one as a backup. Can video and everything.

Nothing but awesome work from you.

Talley wrote in post #18434319
What I noticed and amazed with that nobody has mentioned is the fact these photos were taken with a camera that can be bought for $100-150ish. The original EOS M.

That camera is way more capable than what people make it out to be. I thought about having one just to have one as a backup. Can video and everything.

Heya,

Sorry the EOS-M, while I use it for DSO sometimes, wasn't used. POTN doesn't allow for other cameras to be used to able to list or add to galleries. The camera used is an ASI174MM (monochrome camera sensor). It's a USB camera. The EOS-M is far more advanced. This is just a chinese made monochrome sensor USB camera that I use for astrophotography in general as I capture it as video to create these images. I had to put a camera in the EXIF to allow it in the gallery (again, no generic option on POTN for anything other than common and new dSLR stuff). I use the M and Pentax 28mm for all my astro EXIF because its basically "impossible" if you know the camera (no tethering) and the lens (28mm isn't doing this hehe).

I was using the EOS-M for DSO, but it has one fatal flaw and that is that Canon crippled it for tethered work. So I cannot attach it via USB, tethered, and control it remotely. I don't know why Canon did this to the EOS-M, it has the same guts as the T4i basically (which is not crippled), but they decided to kill tethering in the EOS-M and it looks like they didn't enable it in the later EOS-M generations either. This is profoundly "What the heck!?" in my book because a mirrorless body is often desirable for astro purposes because of the size, weight and the distance to focus control you can get without all the extra space required in a mirrorbox. Sigh... oh well. Weird Canon choices.

Sorry for any confusion!

That said, ANY old USB webcam can do similar to the above. I bought my ASI174MM used for about $400. In astro, we put a lot more into our mounts and filters than we do cameras & lenses, so to speak.

And I have requested generic telescope & generic USB webcam options be added for EXIF purposes for astro shooters. Nothing yet.

Very best,

WOW, I'm really going to have to get a HA filter (or telescope) some day! Great photos!

MalVeauX wrote in post #18433675
Hey all,

Wanted to share some images of our little solar eclipse party here in Florida. We were not ready to travel with all the little kids, so we settled for the partial eclipse that we got at our location (approximately 90% coverage, was still great to see). I have a lot of equipment and set it all up and as people drove by they stopped to look, along with friends & family that gathered. We grilled steaks & veggies and had tons of iced tea to pass the hot day. The great shadow was eerie indeed, everyone was a little spooked. Even more spooky was how all the crickets, local animals, etc, stopped making noise during the peak of the eclipse--unnatural for them too, just made it even more spooky. We had a great time. We had a couple of scopes setup and one was setup with a monitor to view real time. Two scopes were setup for Hydrogen Alpha viewing and one was setup in White Light. We had lots of white light solar film filters that were visors to pass around too.

+++++++++++++++

Mal,

Was one of the scopes in this post the one you used to take the wonderful pictures of the Sun / Moon combination?

You have really great equipment, and the knowledge to know how to use all this fine equipment!

Thank you again for sharing.

I did look at your Flickr!!!

MalVeauX wrote in post #18433682
As this is outreach, I have to show the people of course!

Can there be an exception for such an event with the embed limit pretty please?

There are many more, please if you care to see the instruments and everyone taking a look, browse Flickr. Thanks!

Very best,

Awesome those are spectacular in my opinion.. thanks for sharing

Inspeqtor wrote in post #18434639
Mal,
Was one of the scopes in this post the one you used to take the wonderful pictures of the Sun / Moon combination?

Yessir, I use inexpensive equipment. The big scope is the one I use to image the sun in high resolution in HA wavelength that you saw above; that big 120mm aperture refractor. I bought that thing for $150 or so used. The filter I use on it for HA imaging is over $1k but I got that used for around $850 plus a heat rejecting filter. I image in narrowband (single wavelength) so an old acrhomatic refractor does the same job as a super costly triplet APO does in that regard, so again, I'm using very cheap stuff to do this. The full disc images were done with that little wee PST scope (the gold one), and I bought that one used for about $400 or so (its a dedicated solar scope). I spent much more on the mount & filters than the scopes themselves. In this particular branch of photography, mounts are more important and are the bread & butter of everything, followed by filters, focusers, etc (some would argue scope, but my opinion is different). Scope quality comes next for me if you image in full spectrum. In narrowband you can get away with nearly anything (but you pay a lot for filters to do narrowband). Either way you'd be surprised how inexpensive this stuff is compared to what people pay for a new release Canon dSLR without a lens even. You can get into this kind of imaging for about $2500 all said and done with a decent setup. I do it a lot, so mine sits on a concrete pier 24/7. Carrying 40lbs of mount every day saves my poor back and gains lots of precious time.

I have a tutorial video I made where I use a $100 telescope that is only 400mm focal length and 80mm aperture to image the sun in narrowband (HA light) and how it looks when I capture the video data and what I do with it to get to the images you see above: https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=G-41RMTCdTE

Very best,

MalVeauX wrote in post #18434945
Yessir, I use inexpensive equipment. The big scope is the one I use to image the sun in high resolution in HA wavelength that you saw above; that big 120mm aperture refractor. I bought that thing for $150 or so used. The filter I use on it for HA imaging is over $1k but I got that used for around $850 plus a heat rejecting filter. I image in narrowband (single wavelength) so an old acrhomatic refractor does the same job as a super costly triplet APO does in that regard, so again, I'm using very cheap stuff to do this. The full disc images were done with that little wee PST scope (the gold one), and I bought that one used for about $400 or so (its a dedicated solar scope). I spent much more on the mount & filters than the scopes themselves. In this particular branch of photography, mounts are more important and are the bread & butter of everything, followed by filters, focusers, etc (some would argue scope, but my opinion is different). Scope quality comes next for me if you image in full spectrum. In narrowband you can get away with nearly anything (but you pay a lot for filters to do narrowband). Either way you'd be surprised how inexpensive this stuff is compared to what people pay for a new release Canon dSLR without a lens even. You can get into this kind of imaging for about $2500 all said and done with a decent setup. I do it a lot, so mine sits on a concrete pier 24/7. Carrying 40lbs of mount every day saves my poor back and gains lots of precious time.

I have a tutorial video I made where I use a $100 telescope that is only 400mm focal length and 80mm aperture to image the sun in narrowband (HA light) and how it looks when I capture the video data and what I do with it to get to the images you see above: https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=G-41RMTCdTE

Very best,

Mal,

I am totally amazed with your talent. I now have an even higher respect for your knowledge with what you do.

I figured you had a very high $$$$$ telescope, you do not. I figured you also used a very high $$$$ camera, you do not.

Your knowledge with ALL the different software programs totally is also amazing.

I probably understood maybe 10% of what you talked about in your tutorial, but I did enjoy it. Will I ever be able to do this? Probably not. But thank you for giving everyone here a window to look in to see what it takes to show us the photos you produce.

HOLY CRAP! I was feeling pretty proud of my stuff until I opened this thread! Amazing photos! Stunning!

MalVeauX wrote in post #18434394
Heya,

Sorry the EOS-M, while I use it for DSO sometimes, wasn't used. POTN doesn't allow for other cameras to be used to able to list or add to galleries. The camera used is an ASI174MM (monochrome camera sensor). It's a USB camera. The EOS-M is far more advanced. This is just a chinese made monochrome sensor USB camera that I use for astrophotography in general as I capture it as video to create these images. I had to put a camera in the EXIF to allow it in the gallery (again, no generic option on POTN for anything other than common and new dSLR stuff). I use the M and Pentax 28mm for all my astro EXIF because its basically "impossible" if you know the camera (no tethering) and the lens (28mm isn't doing this hehe).

I was using the EOS-M for DSO, but it has one fatal flaw and that is that Canon crippled it for tethered work. So I cannot attach it via USB, tethered, and control it remotely. I don't know why Canon did this to the EOS-M, it has the same guts as the T4i basically (which is not crippled), but they decided to kill tethering in the EOS-M and it looks like they didn't enable it in the later EOS-M generations either. This is profoundly "What the heck!?" in my book because a mirrorless body is often desirable for astro purposes because of the size, weight and the distance to focus control you can get without all the extra space required in a mirrorbox. Sigh... oh well. Weird Canon choices.

Sorry for any confusion!

That said, ANY old USB webcam can do similar to the above. I bought my ASI174MM used for about $400. In astro, we put a lot more into our mounts and filters than we do cameras & lenses, so to speak.

And I have requested generic telescope & generic USB webcam options be added for EXIF purposes for astro shooters. Nothing yet.

Very best,

I also used the EOS-M with my measly setup and video recorded the entire event. I'm in the process of creating a time lapse video. The other fatal flaw with the EOS-M is that recording automatically stops every 29 or so minutes. I didn't realize this at the time and haven't looked to see if this can be changed.

Inspeqtor wrote in post #18435073
Mal,

I am totally amazed with your talent. I now have an even higher respect for your knowledge with what you do.

I figured you had a very high $$$$$ telescope, you do not. I figured you also used a very high $$$$ camera, you do not.

Your knowledge with ALL the different software programs totally is also amazing.

I probably understood maybe 10% of what you talked about in your tutorial, but I did enjoy it. Will I ever be able to do this? Probably not. But thank you for giving everyone here a window to look in to see what it takes to show us the photos you produce.

No problem, my pleasure. I do this stuff often this way to help others with getting into it that have the interest. It's not that difficult and doesn't require insane equipment. We generally like to over-complicate things in terrestrial photography (heh heh) with needing really top shelf eqiupment and glass to basically run around taking snapshots on our day to day and it's extreme overkill, and from that very opinion I often hear the idea that it's too expensive or too time consuming to do something like astrophotography, when really it's just another way, and not nearly as expensive, and you learn a lot about photography as a science (understanding what resolution actually is, why pixel size matters, how to match focal-ratio and pixel size for ideal sampling, etc). We way, way overkill it in terrestrial photography I find. That's part of the fun though! It can be daunting to get into a form of photography like this, so I like to often do it with common, inexpensive and accessible equipment to show it can be done nicely on a dime (proverbially speaking...).

You actually don't even need a tracker for this. You can just let the sun drift through a wide FOV for a few seconds and capture video at high speed during that time and do the same thing. "Drift method" is the common name for it. Trackers just make it easier to fiddle and not realign with your subject every few moments.

The things you must have though are a video capable camera of some kind (faster the better) and a filter for the wavelength you want to image in (in this case, hydrogen alpha). The filter will always be the most costly part of this equation because you're asking for a filter that is as tight as limiting it down to just 656.28nm, 5 significant digits of precision. That costs money. But it's still cheaper than a typical high quality Canon lens like a 24-70 for example. These filters can be as little as $400ish to as much as several thousand.

Very best,