Solar Event Recorded

I found it very interesting to load footage last night - footage fresh from the field, of various shots of a sunset, including close-ups of the orb as it was setting, stopped down enough to see significant sunspot activity on the disc, just before the pesky clouds obscured it completely.

Today, an email from an Auroral Alert list I'm subscribed to:

"A solar event occurred on the 14th of June that will lead to increased auroral activity that may be visible in southern Canada and northern United States. We expect the auroral activity index to be 4 or greater. Watch the short term forecast at http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/.
The nights are too bright to see the aurora in northern Canada, Alaska, Russia and Scandinavia."

Kinda neat, huh? Also interesting to note the changes in the sunspots from their relative locations on the recent Venus transit event of last week.

Look forward to seeing the clips.

This just in: (truncated by over-exuberant cloud action) Unfortunately the only clip that was any good for the sunspots, although I did get 6 clips from last night's crazy stormlapse action...

Wow I could even see it on the pre-second-render version there. You may have a good clip there. I would definately put solr event type stuff in the search criteria and maybe price a little high.

Really? Thanks. Actually, I'm finding it to be a lot of fun to shoot solar stuff....did you happen to see the recent National Geographic issua on Solar Storms? Some awesome images....

What do you mean "pre-second-render version"?

By the way, this is where using the PIX recorder (or any such 4:2:2 or better recorder) really shines. Sensor noise just disappears, and the exposure latitude is tons better.

Pre-second-render, as in a few weeks after you upload something it renders again by p5 and gets some of the detail back.

Yeah I love my 5dm2, but look forward to something with more dynamic range. I do HDR work with it and that is fun, but a Red Epic would be nice.

OK...that's what I was thinking you meant.

Yeah, dynamic range lust. I've got it too. I want more than my eyes are capable of, and that's just irrational.

Attempted another orb shot tonight. The sunspots are still there. The clouds were better, actually, until they opened up and washed it completely out. The dimension of the cloud layers was a perfect filter (for a while), and looks REALLY cool. Rendering now.

This footage is from the same day as the Venus passage, which I unfortunately not was able to record due to heavy clouds, but later on the day clouds disappeared.
Technically this is shot with my old Canon XLH1 + ef-adapter and a 500mm f4.5 lens at 1080p25. I used a Baader Planetarium AstroSolar safety filter in front of the lens + ND 0.9 drop in filter to get appropriate aperture settings of f8
Footage still awaiting approval

Wait no longer - I approve!