These are some notes and code for merging my raw photos of the Solar Eclipse 2024.
This is the resulting merged photo:
Here is an example of a jpeg directly from the camera:
Steps (2-6 use Python/OpenCV):
- Use Darktable to export raw images to 32-bit exr in linear light. The profile that was used is in the .xmp file.
- Use Hough transform to find eclipsed Sun disk. Recenter and crop images.
- Find the angular average of the intensity profile for each image. From the profiles, it is clear which radial portions of an image are under/over-exposed.
- Use some ad hoc method to determine actual intensity profile of the corona. Didn't have darks/flats, so couldn't really do better than this.
- Compare actual intensity to intensity in each image. Use that to weigh away under/over exposed portions of images.
- Merge images and flatten radial intensity by dividing by actual intensity profile.
- Use GIMP to do final touches.