17.08.2020 A beginner's guide to simple, H-alpha solar imaging.

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There are a lot of very simple rules to maximize one's progress at solar imaging.  I was a beginner only recently and had to learn from others to make any progress at all. I pored over solar and other forums. I read the blogs and websites. I read the equipment reviews. I watched countless YouTube videos and tutorials. All this gave me a basic grounding in what was required. Mostly they don't dwell on the simplest ways to increase personal progress:

Practice, practice, practice, practice. If you want to get ahead then you have to teach your own head what works for you and what doesn't. Most solar imagers probably spend a tiny fraction of the time I have invested in this pastime over quite a short period. Which is fine if you have the time to learn slowly. I felt I didn't and wanted to cut the 10 year apprenticeship to a few short months.

As I am long past retired I have almost unlimited daytime hours to work at my solar imaging. My only hope of improving, within an acceptable time frame, at my age, was and remains endless practice. That way I make all my mistakes early on and can then discard poor methods and routines.

It also needs enough equipment, of sufficient quality, to avoid having too many handicaps. An old achromatic refractor and the innards of a PST still need a suitable camera and protective filters. A sub aperture D-ERF will save serious money but with serious potential risks.

Buying secondhand will get you a very long way, for much less than the terrifying prices of ready made solar telescopes. But only if you maximize the full potential of your equipment with endless practice.

If you are working all day long then your may not have the free spare time to hone your skills. So you must make every second count. That is much harder than repeated practice. Because you won't yet know what you are doing wrong. Steep learning curves are best tackled by the young. Otherwise it can all seem completely overwhelming.

Your driven mounting will be more useful if you mark the ground for the feet of your tripod or pier. That way you don't have to start from scratch by laboriously aligning the mounting every time. A solar finder is very useful for centring the sun before you can start imaging. Don't forget to remove or safely cover your normal finder! It is just too easy to look through it to find the sun! Making the telescope's shadow round is a quick and dirty way of aligning on the sun.

Choose a poor day to do housework. Things like aligning your mounting and updating your software. Don't waste valuable imaging time on such humble things. In typically, changeable weather it may be your only chance to see or capture a unique, or interesting, solar feature.
 
You certainly don't need an observatory for solar imaging. In fact and it may well impede your imaging with "very bad thermals."  White is usually considered good. Any other colour can be very bad indeed! So avoid making your observatory into a solar cooker!

The sun shining through the open slit of a dome will heat everything inside! Far too hot to handle! All that heat can only escape back out through the observing/imaging slit as wobbly, convection currents.

Many, very skilled imagers work outside. Or from a simple box with a roll-off roof. But not one covered in tar felt! Even bare wood and plywood can get very hot. Try painting it any other colour, than white and you will boil in there! 

Working out in the open, preferably on a lawn, is usually far better for steadier seeing. Early morning and late afternoon are usually best. So time your imaging, or visual observing, to maximize your own progress.

Foliage, crops and grass are cool. Buildings, concrete and asphalt get very hot. Guess which raises thermal currents to linger like a bonfire in your tiny, highly magnified, field of view?

Personal shade is very desirable and easily arranged. Even if it is the shadow of a building, tree, bush or balcony. A dark, peaked cap or wide brimmed hat really helps improve the contrast on your monitoring screen. A dark blanket over your head is apt to make you bake!

A recycled packaging box will help to shield a monitor or laptop from bright sunlight. Wear dark clothing to avoid being the hideously bright reflection in your own screen. These are all very simple methods to avoid undermining your own imaging progress.

Do your image processing indoors on a reasonable screen to be able to see your results clearly. An SSD is handy for carrying lots of large, video image files back indoors once the sun goes down.

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