Monday 14 May 2012

What a whopper!

Sunspot active region 1476 that is. A rare spell of sunny weather over the weekend allowed me to try and capture AR1476, which is the largest active region so far this solar cycle.

Unfortunately, it's been a while since I've used my camera and I must've been a bit rusty in it's basic operation, leaving the ISO setting on it's previous value of 800. As if I needed that extra bit of sensitivity to record the solar disk! I should've realised things were not right when I found I needed an exposure of 1/5000 to prevent over-exposure, but this clue clearly escaped my attention, so ISO800 it remained. I only realised my mistake when processing the stack of 20 exposures later on Saturday evening.


Considering the noisy settings, the final result is actually not too bad. I presume the stacking in Registax has helped remove much of it, but I still wish I'd had opportunity to repeat the shots at my usual ISO200.