My 3D solar image did not require any image manipulation.

I think this is a first, in that the 3D effect is created just by taking two different viewpoints, without any artificial intervention on my part. My 3D image was inspired Brian May’s book of 3D images of  the asteroid Bennu. The idea presented in his book, and beautifully illustrated there by the 3D images, is that all you need for 3D is two different viewpoints: either you move or the target moves. 

This is NOT simulated 3D, in which two copies of an image is made, and then elements in one of the images are moved in some way, either based on brightness, or manually shifting elements, that you want to appear to be closer, in one of the images. The view here is two Solar images taken at different times in the same imaging session. That’s it. No manipulation to get the 3D. This is just like you were in a spacecraft circling the Sun and took two photos at different times in your orbit. 

To view in 3D

• It is best, if the two images fill your screen. The normal view will work, but it is easier if you go full resolution.
• Depending on the size of your screen your eyes should be about 12 to 16” from the screen: my own screen is 32” diagonal and I sit about 16” away.
• Cross your eyes so you see 3 images. Don’t try to focus at this point, in fact if your eyes are relaxed, like you are looking into the distance, it is easier. Then slowly bring your eyes into focus and the center image should pop out in 3D. You may need to try a few times-relax your eyes and try again.

This image has been surface luminosity inverted, so brighter surface areas are, in fact, darker and cooler, while darker surface areas are brighter and hotter. Any features on the limb that extend into the Corona, such as any Prominences, are not inverted.

Seeing was okay, average for the 1st image, but for the 2nd image seeing had deteriorated somewhat. Fortunately it doesn’t appear to affect the 3D look. 

In 3D you will see:        

• Coming out above the general plane of the Sun surface (the Chromosphere) are  the brighter filaments, which is what prominences are called when they are viewed against the backdrop of the Sun's surface. Filaments are anchored in the Sun, but then rise through the Chromosphere into the Corona. Thus, filaments are cooler than the Chromosphere.
• Black areas are bright plages that appear to be lower in the solar atmosphere than the filaments, as they are in the Chromosphere.
• Near the left limb is a white spot, which is a dark sunspot. This will also appear to be lower in the solar atmosphere, as it is on the Sun’s Photosphere, below the Chromosphere.

More about 3D
 A 3D image consists of two images that are taken from a different vantage point, usually by moving the camera position to the left or right, the amount of shift depends on the distance to the subject and how much of a 3D depth one wants. The photos are placed side by side.

There are two viewing modes for standard 3D images:

• Cross-eyed: The image that was taken on the right, which represents the right eye view goes on the left, the left shifted image to the right, and one views cross-eyed. No viewer is needed, though there are some who are unable to do this trick.
• Parallel: The image taken on the right goes on the right, the image taken on the left goes on the left. For most people you need to use a special viewer, which has some magnification. The images are relatively small as they need to be about eye distance apart. Thus the magnification helps with image size, but also to provide focus for each eye on its image. Even with a parallel viewer it can take some practice to see in 3D.

A few people, such as my wife, can see both types without a viewer. Some have trouble with either.

3D images can also be setup to be viewed with special glasses:

• Anaglyph 3D which takes two images with different viewpoints and applying contrasting colors to each, such as red and green. These images must be viewed with special glasses, with a nerdy combination of one red and one green lens.
• Polarized 3D which takes two images with different viewpoints and applies a different polarization for each image, which requires one to wear (somewhat less nerdy) glasses with lenses of two different polarizations.

Since I wear glasses anyway, there is nothing more nerdy than special glasses on top of glasses. 

Imaging
This image is from two 40 s SER videos I took with 70 ms exposures at 14 fps. Gain was set at 100 and the ROI was 2600x2600 pixels. Autostakkert3 was used to stack the best 15% (86 frames) of the 573 frames captured.  

Processing
I used ImPPG do the solar surface grayscale inversion (bright areas appear dark on the surface, dark areas appear bright), while leaving the faint prominences and flare on the limb without inversion.   I set the Lucy-Richardson Deconvolution to sigma=1.8 at ,500 iterations, and used two unsharp masks ( sigma=1.6 and 3.0), using the adaptive settings and a threshold so as to not overly sharp fainter/noisier parts of the image. Some contrast/highlights/shadows and color adjustments were done in Photoshop, as was assembling the 3D image.

My Layman's Guide to the Top 10 Things to See in Solar Ha
I did not include my list here, but if you missed it, or need a refresher, please  go to any of my previous solar images or animations, for example: https://www.astrobin.com/8qo75j/