Linear Polarimetry of the Solar Corona during the Total Solar Eclipse of 8 April 2024: Multi-Band Observations and HDR Imaging

High-Dynamic-Range (HDR) multi-band linear polarimetry of the solar corona during total solar eclipses provides a vital ground-based diagnostic tool for mapping plasma morphology and magnetic topology in the inner and middle corona. Extracting reliable polarimetric signals requires rigorous observational calibration, spatial co-alignment, and noise reduction via stacking. We report optical linear polarimetric observations acquired during the 8 April 2024 total solar eclipse from Dallas, Texas, USA, near solar maximum. Using a full-frame color CMOS detector paired with an 80 mm refractor, multi-band Red, Green, and Blue (RGB) images were recorded simultaneously across three polarizer orientations (-60, 0, and +60) using a 9-step exposure bracket (1/800 s to 1/3 s). We present an end-to-end data-reduction pipeline incorporating: (i) a novel astrometric registration framework that reconstructs Sun-centric solar-disk coordinates via lunar-limb fitting, catalog star plate-solving, and ephemeris displacement calculations, achieving sub-pixel alignment; (ii) a photometrically linear exposure-normalization HDR image synthesis; and (iii) Multi-scale Gaussian Normalization (MGN) coupled with Polarization-to-RGB chromatic mapping. The resulting structurally enhanced polarization composites unravel a complex solar-maximum coronal topology characterized by helmet streamers and fine-scale striations traceable out to about3,R. This framework establishes a high-resolution, photometrically calibrated dataset ready for subsequent polarized brightness (pB) and electron density inversions.