The Sun and Other Objects

Last Saturday (21 May 2016 @~18:48 (UT+3)) I made a picture of the Sun using Canon EOS 600D camera with common ES-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II lens (BAADER Astrosolar film was used as a sunfilter).
A rather big sunspot is visible in a disk of the Sun. To emphasize a size of the spot I put my old image of Jupiter (taken with small 65mm Newtonian + Canon IXUS 132 compact camera) near the spot with the same scale (linear sizes of the planet and the Sun were taken from Wikipedia).
To the left of Jupiter is an image of Earth (from Google Earth, also in the same scale -- it could be simple blue ball because almost no details are visible at such scaling)

The picture is a result of an averaging of 10 individual frames processed with PIPP, AS2, Registax6.
Initial frames were captured at the following conditions:
ISO=100
F=1/11
Exp=1/4000s

Mercury Transit across the Sun -- continued

Today (9 May 2016) a quite rare phenomenon occurred: a transit of Mercury across the Sun.
Here is an animation of four subsequent frames with an interval of about half an hour between.
A small moving spot is Mercury, other features on Sun's disk are sunspots.

Before stacking, Sun's images were manually aligned (rotated) using the first frame as a reference; angle of rotation was determined by sunspots. Of course, such an alignment is quite approximate.
(Sun orientation itself is arbitrary)

The picture beneath is a result of processing of 5 frames shotted at ~15:03 (UT+2).

ISO=100; F/11; 1/4000s (5 frames of 10). Processing: PIPP (10 frames); Autostakkert2 (5 frames of 10); RegiStax6 (wavelets, contrast, gamma); AstraImage (adaptive filter); FSViewer (rotation, cropping, zooming).

See also time-lapse video of a beginning of the transit:

Part of the video, processed with PIPP+Autostakkert2+Registax6:

Mercury Transit across the Sun

Today (9 May 2016) I tried to capture a transit of Mercury across the Sun.
This is the best picture obtained during the session (I used Canon EOS 600D with EF-S 55-250mm IS II on a tripod. A solar filter was made from BAADER AstroSolar film.
An initial sequence of 60 frames captured between 15:16 and 15:18 (UT+3) was processed by PIPP, then 18 frames were selected manually; 50% of them (9 frames) were stacked using AutoStakkert2. Postprocessing was performed in AstraImage (deconvolution etc.).

(Sun orientation is arbitrary)

See also time-lapse video of a beginning of the transit:

The Sun #3

Another shot of the Sun made in the approaching of Mercury transit.

27 Apr 2016 ~14:37-14:39 (UT+3)

Setup: Canon EOS 600D + EF-S 55-250 f/4-5.6 @250mm on tripod.

Self-made sun-filter from BAADER AstroSolar film was used.

Parameters: ISO 100; f/11; 1/4000s (50 frames)

Processing: PIPP, AutoStakkert2 (26 of 50 frames), AstraImage, RawTherapee.

The Sun #2

Sun today (24 Apr 2016 at ~14:26-14:30 (UT+3))
A new group of spots appears today (not visible in the yesterday images). A faculae field is visible near limb in the upper-left.
There were light clouds while capturing (which, probably, caused shadows on Sun's disk)

Canon EOS 600D + EF-S 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS II @250mm on tripod
ISO=100; F/9; 1/4000
PIPP, Autostakkert2 (27 frames of 56), Registax6 (wavelets), AstraImage (filter)

Later at ~18:07-18:09 (UT+3)

ISO=100; F/7; 1/4000s
PIPP, Autostakkert2 (46 frames of 60), AstraImage (deconvolution, filter)

The Sun

The Sun today (23 Apr 2016) at 13:23 (UT+3). Kyiv (Osokorky).

Captured with Canon EOS 600D + EF-S 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS II at 250mm with sun-filter made from BAADER AstroSolar film.
14 individual frames were stacked (using PIPP+Autostakkert2), deconvolution was made using AstraImage.
Frames were captured at ISO 100; F/13; shutter speed 1/4000s.

The next image is a result of stacking of 34 frames (ISO 100; F/7; 1/4000s) captured at ~16:20 (UT+3)

The spot:

The setup: