Imaging the Sun is much like imaging the Moon or the planets. Excellent optics and a stable mount are necessary for good results. The Sun because it is so bright does not require huge apertures to collect light. In fact daytime seeing conditions necessitate smaller apertures most of the time. Apertures in the 6 to 10 inch range can produce truly professional results. I have been using a 5.1" f/8 Astro-Physics Starfire EDT the last few years. I was able to purchase a 6.1" Astro-Physics Star ED refractor from a fellow club member and adapted it for solar use. I am hoping it will improve my results. I began drawing the Sun and doing sunspot counts in the early 1980's. I then began photographing the Sun using an Olympus OM-1 camera body and Kodak Technical Pan 2415. In 1995 I purchased an SBIG ST-5 camera. This was my initiation in electronic imaging. The ST5 camera had a small CCD chip (320 x 240 pixels). This is adequate for planetary imaging, but is rather small for high resolution solar work. I worked with this camera for a few years and decided to try my hand at video imaging. I purchased an Astrovid 2000 video camera from Adirondack Video Astronomy. I liked this video camera because the camera controls were external. Having control over the camera’s shutter speed without having to adjust it with a screwdriver is a big plus.

I record images either to Super-VHS tape or frame grab directly from the video camera to the computer. My H-alpha set-up includes a DayStar 0.56 Angstrom filter, 150 mm energy rejection filter and TeleVue 4X Powermate. This gives a focal length of 5,600 mm. With the video camera  a moderately sized sunspot group will fill the screen. I started out using the Snappy frame grabber. It was okay for grabbing images from video tape, but was somewhat slow for live frame grabs. I then picked up the MRT VideoPort Professional frame grabber. It is much quicker for live frame grabs. I can save an image to the screen as fast as I can hit the computer key. When I see an image that looks acceptable I will save it to disk. I use a Toshiba 12" high resolution monitor for focusing. The image on my laptop screen is not sharp enough to accurately judge focus. I’ve made a cardboard shield and head cover for the monitor screen so I can see it in bright sunlight. It is attached with a bungee cord to the monitor which is on a small cart with wheels. I place the monitor in a good position so I can focus the telescope. My laptop is kept in the garage in darker conditions. I will usually save about 40 to 50 images to disk during an observing session. Early morning hours in the summer months gives me the best seeing conditions. After I am done imaging I will take the camera off and sit back and do some visual observing. Once I started film photography and video imaging I ceased to do drawings and sunspot counts. One day, when I have more time, I would like to return to more visual observing. When I am done imaging I will review the video tape or frame grabbed images from the live grabs. I will select the best images for processing. I use Adobe Photoshop, CCDSoft and Maxim DL for processing the images. Each program gives different results. I will try several unsharp masking routines on my images. For H-alpha images I prefer to actually create an unsharp mask and subtract from the original image. This technique was developed by deep sky photographer Jerry Lodriguss and adapted for planetary imaging by Jim Ferreira and David Moore. For white light images I prefer the unsharp masking routine in CCDSoft (Software Bisque). When I am finished processing I add descriptive text in Adobe Photoshop. I will always save an original raw image, a processed TIFF image and a JPEG that I will send electronically to the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers, Solar Section. The key thing to remember is take a lot of images as often as you can. I have to take many images to get a few outstanding ones. Take notes including date and time for each image. Also record what equipment you used and what settings, etc. you used. You can then later compare what works and what doesn’t.