Sunset In A Murky Sky - March 18th

[martinastro]

I have found one good thing about this high pressure weather. The sky is stagnant, hazy and not kind for astronomical work but it is presenting a good period for sunset photography. I went out today and imaged the setting Sun which showed a crisp disk to the naked eye over the Sperrin Mountains. It was so peaceful and warm that I spent the time in a t-shirt with dancing midgets (the Fly kind!), Rabbits running through the fields, and even a flock of Geese flying overhead. A few shots...

[JohnC]

Lovely Photos, Martin-very rich colours. It feels warm looking at them

Do you have any of the rabbits, geese and midges ? lol

[martinastro]

Thanks John, I don't have any of the wild life, the Rabbit was too far away and moving fast, my 300mm lens wasn't fast enough to get it and the Geese arrived so suddenly that I hadn't time to change the camera settings which were still set for the Sun. I'm going to try again this evening for another sunset and will be watching for more Geese and Buzzards. Hoping to see a few hedgehogs in the near future and capture Bats around the streetlights on Summer nights 

[Tyler]

Indeed Martin, A beautiful sky. I love when the sunsets like that, I wonder if you could see sunspots when it is visible like that? of course you need sunspots to see them lol

[martinastro]

Thanks Tyler. Yip, if you have a large sunspot on the disk you would see it no problem with the naked eye as long as the Sun is filtered through the appropriate cloud as you know (or your own filter). I recall many stunning large naked eye sunpot groups not that many years ago which could be seen without optical aid on gorgeous Spring and Summer evenings. Back then I didn't know anything about photography because now I would love to be taking disk shots of the Sun with spots on view...VERY photogenic and dramatic. Role on solar maximum!

Here's a shot from this evening. I was back out again and ALMOST got a green flash. The top limb of the Sun did turn green (only a hint of this on the image) but just not quite enough to get the real effect. Round 3 tomorow. Below are a few more images from the previous evening of the land after sunset. I love that time of the evening so much.

I need advice please. The solar disk as been yellow or orange these last two evenings but the camera records it as white despite recording the colours of the sky around it accurately. Is there any way to 'fix' this colour during processing?. Thanks.

[Tyler]

Great new pics! man we all just need solar maxium! that would be wicked to see a naked eye sunspot

[Paul]

Same murk here Martin! If you're getting over-exposure, and generally you will as an automatic exposure system will try and average everything out, including the areas around the Sun that you'd like dark, then either dial in a stop or two of under-exposure or use manual and set the shutter speed faster than recommended. Set the White balance to "Daylight". The rescue mission in post-processing is a bit more difficult if you have shot Jpeg, easier if you shot RAW. Here's an example - my first snap at yesterday's sunset was overexposed - so I've opened the "Levels" control and moved the black level up a bit and the Gamma - ie the midpoint - far over to the right. Not perfect, but it's a rescue. If I'd used the DSLR and shot RAW I'd have been able to reduce the overall exposure and stop the Sun burning out. It is possible to carry out this adjustment separately for all three colours thus altering the white balance.





Now my sunset pics....

[martinastro]

Thanks Paul for the processing tips. I must give that a try later because I will be imaging this evening's sunset too. I will play around with the levels and see if I can rescue that yellow-orange colour. Unfortunately I'm shooting in Jpeg but I might get some result with it. The sunset images I took over the last two days where full manual at a shutter speed of 4000/sec at F/8 ISO100 while altering the aperture a bit between shots. That's the fastest shutter and smallest aperture my camera has. Round three this evening!

Very nice images by the way, what mountain is the Sun setting over there Paul?

[Big Dipper]

Some lovely shots gents - plus they pretty much sum up weather reports that I've seen on other UK astro forums. Certainly the warm, spring-like weather of the last few days really do put you in a good mood, but the downside to that is that it's not really suited to our mainly nocturnal hobby.

[Steveo74]

Lovely bunch of shots Martin, colours are so deep & rich..   

Paul nice to see how you process your shots, well put together...