Ha Full Disk 8th June

A quick look at the sun this morning before work with the double stacked 50mm scope, there is starting to be plenty of activty to see on the sun at the moment which is nice to see!

AR12829 in CaK 6th June

The seeing was very up and down on sunday, and despite recording a lot of data this is the only one that really came out with any clarity. Taken with the 127mm / 1200 scope stopped down to 60mm to give f20 with the ZWO290mm camera. At f20 in CaK this camera has a lot of synergy.

CaK Overview - 5th June

Exploring the sun at 60mm aperture with the travelling kit at Harefields on the side of the canal on a pleasant saturday morning at 6am!

Ha Full Disk 6th June

Just enought time for a quick full disk on the 4th in between the gaps. Taken with the Lunt 50 etalon double stacked with a Daystar Quark on the 60mm f6 scope.

AR12827 in CaK - 2nd June

I was pleased to get some good seeing first thing in the morning, and was able to use the 120mm scope at f20 (with 2x cemax barlow) along with the ZWO290mm camera along with the home brew CaK filter.

CaK Sun 31st May

The sunshine of May carried on right to the end of the month!

Overview From 30th May

More shots taken late in the afternoon from Filey in North Yorkshire.

Calcium Collection 29th May

A nice run of calcium images taken in reasonable seeing conditions for the late afternoon. Taken at 60mm aperture, closeups using a 2x cemax barlow and the ZWO290mm camera.

CaK Shots From 27th May

60mm aperture was pushing it a bit here with the seeing, but just nice to get some sunshine!

Ha Shots From 27th May

Struggling with the seeing with these but better than nothing!

AR12824 Ha - 22nd May

Following a great start to spring weather wise, May as a month has not been great for solar imaging, with temperatures below average and plenty of cloud and rain. Gaps have been few and far between or generally when i've been at work. Satruday offered brighter skies, never completely clear, but transient brief blue patches, which is considerably better than the past few weeks gave. I started off with some visual work with the Coronado DS90 and a 18mm Cemax eyepiece which gives a nice full disk scale at 44x magnification. There was lots of pencil thin detail etched around the main active region, along with tenuous filaments and some small proms. After a band of showers passed through I switched to the 2x cemax barlow and the ZWO290mm camera for a close up view. Seeing was up and down in between the cloud gaps, and this is as sharp a view as I got. Later on there was some small scale C-class flaring which was interesting to view through the eyepiece. Just hoping some better weather arrives soon!

Ha Shots 7th May

My first decent shots first thing in the morning this season. I have my pier set up on the eastern side of the house with the Solarquest mount on which is idea for shots with the travelling kit. In this case this was with the Lunt 50mm etalon double stacked with a Daystar Quark and a FLIR IMX174 camera.

Jet Transit! 2nd May

The sun may have been pretty quiet on sunday, but I was pleasantly surprised to catch this Bombardier Global 5000 transiting the sun at a speed of 464 knots at an altitude of 24000 feet, been a while since I got a transit so pleased with this one!

Single Stack Double Stack Comparison 2nd May

The top image was taken with the Lunt 50 etalon, a 2x cemax barlow and the ZWO 290mm camera. The bottom image was takem with a Lunt50 etalon double stacked with a DAystar Quark and using the FLIR IMX174 camera. The difference in contrast on the filament is really quite obvious. I do use single stack some times, but the vast majotity of the time it is double stack all the way for me!

Departing Active Regions in Ha 2nd May

Taken with a Lunt50 etalon, double stacked with a DAystar Quark and using the FLIR IMX174 camera, this image shows the turbulent plasma of the chromosphere as these active regions slowly turn away from us.