H-alpha image colourisation and the adding of to-scale images of the Earth and Jupiter with Sylvain Weiller's 'Solar Gun' software

The monochrome solar H-alpha image showed lots of structure but it had a background gradient as frequently happens. In a colourised image background gradients show up much more than in monochrome images. It is best therefore to reduce or eliminate the background gradient.

Click on an image to get a closer view

The background extraction was carried out in GraXpert

The interpolation method used was Kriging. the sampling points were set automatically and any that overlapped the edge of the Sun were either moved or removed.

Animation alternating between the original image and the Gradient-Corrected image

The background, which was lighter at the bottom of the image is much more even following background extraction.

Gradient-corrected monochrome image of the Sun

The software used to colourise the image and also to add to scale, images of Jupiter and/or the Earth was Solar Gun, written by Sylvain Weiller and can be obtained HERE.

Solar Gun in operation

Colourised image of the H-alpha Sun with added scale images of the Earth and Jupiter

Solar Gun can apply negative colouration

Negative Colourised H-alpha image

Solar Gun is a welcome addition to a Solar-imager's toolkit and produces pleasing results. It should be noted that in addition to the palettes provided by the software, it is possible to extract a palette from almost any other solar image using another of Sylvain's programs: Color Palette Generator, and the generated palette can be used in Solar Gun to colourise your image.

Colourising a Ca K-line image with a palette produced in Color Palette Generator from a Ca K-line image on the Internet

Of course, the placing of to-scale images of Jupiter and or Earth is optional.