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Focusing for solar imaging


asliski

Question

I am evaluating using backyard nikon for imaging the upcoming solar eclipse.  I gave it a try and have a couple of suggestions.  First, the option to not download the images to the PC didn't work.  This uses a lot of time and would cut into the precious 2.5 minutes of the eclipse coming up.  I am using a Nikon D7000 and did an update of the firmware before starting.  I think this might be relatively easy to fix.

 

The other issue is that the focusing methods, well suited to stars aren't much good looking at the disk of the sun.  I have done some digital imaging software development and can suggest using the image gradient as an alternative measure of focus success.  Pick a region of interest and calculate the maximum gradient within the ROI and display this number, better yet with a bar graph that also "remembers" the peak value for the past 10 seconds, for example.  This would work on the edge of the solar disk when otherwise featureless and also when focusing on a sunspot.  A really useful feature would be to have a tone that varies in pitch as the gradient changes.  this means I don't have to stare at small numbers on a screen in the sun, where I can't really see it well.  The tone is also incredibly useful when the computer monitor is not right next to the focus control.  The ear is very sensitive to pitch,  I have used this method and it works well.  This would be very useful for stellar focusing as well.

Alan Sliski

 

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