Sun Wednesday 28th July

This is the first time in over 10 days i've been able to get a look at or image the sun. I woke up to blue skies this morning, however my easterly aspect is not only uphill, but also a horizon of rooftops, so I have to wait roughly 4 hours from sunrise till I can actually see that darn thing... This is not my best shot, the solar disk was a matter of degrees above a neighbours rooftop, and, you've guessed it cloud was racing in fast. As a result I got alot less frames than I would normally when imaging. Still, in this naff British weather a shot is a shot i guess...Lots going on on the disk today - the HUGE prom on the south eastern limb was the feature that instantly caught my eye, and the numerous filaments really stood out in the DS view. The new spot coming over the limb has a huge area of churned chromosphere associated with it.

Taken with DS40 @ f16 PL130M

Tomorrows weather promises to be better so i'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Saturday 17th July - Part 2

Following the rain of the morning and early afternoon, I was really pleased around tea time when the clouds finally broke. It was very very blustery and seeing wasn't great, but never the less it was blue sky so tme to take somemore images!

I decided to have a go at a mosaic shot, using the DS40 at f20 and the DMK31. This is something i've been wanting to have a go at for a while. I did get data for the whole disk, however upon close inspection a thin layer of high cloud was making its way across the shots for the southern half of the disk. This played havoc with the levels and meant there was considerably less image contrast than with the northern half presented below. Unfortunately it wasn't possible to marry to 2 halves of the disk up. Still, for a very first attempt i'm pretty pleased with the image below. For maximum effect click on it to get the full size version. I can see this is something i'm going to have to pursue somemore when time and weather conditions permit.


The filaprom on the northwestern limb was a great example and I think shows up pretty well in this 'one shot' - I can't decide which version I prefer the best - colour or black and white, so both are presented.

Increasing the exposure a bit more reveals the more intricate nature of the prominence part of it.

There was also a nice prom on the south easterm limb, however by now high cloud was lowering contrast and brightening the sky background.

Another nice prom was visible on the south western limb...

All in all i'm pleased with todays results - can't wait to have a go at somemore mosaics!

Saturday 17th July

Well after a week of cloud, rain and gales - good old British summer weather! this morning promised the best chance of some sun, probably for the weekend as a whole. I only managed to image for a shade over 90 seconds before the cloud, and shortly thereafter, the rain returned.In terms of todays sun, AR11087 is now in the north western quadrant of the sun, and while not as active as it has been still has plenty of detail and structure, surrounded by a huge area of disturbed chromosphere. Lots of small bitty filaments all over the disk, with a possible area of brightened plage in the north east quadrant. Of interest in the days ahead is a new area of activity coming over the south eastern limb - this is manifesting itself as an area of very bright, if small stubby, prominences - definitely something to keep an eye on. There were numerous other proms visible, however these haven't shown up great on this 'one shot' full disk image.

I thought i'd put an 'earth for scale' on the image info - boy we live on a small planet! You can click on the images to open an enlarged version in another window.

Hope you like them! Hope to get somemore captures if the clouds break this afternoon.

Mark

Sunday 11th July

Poor weather and other commitments have meant getting any solar in has been pretty much nigh impossible this last week, so I was pleased this morning when the weather had better offerings for me. Whislt not comletely clear skies, rather bands of fast moving cloud - it was a case of patiently waiting till the sun appeared in the gaps between the cloud trains, Consulting the visible satellite image I knew I had to be quick as there was a band of high cirrus rapidly moving in that I knew would play havoc with levels when imaging.

First off was the full disk. There were numerous low contrast quiescent filaments on view, however the main feature of note is AR11087. This is a very large active region that has a large 'S' shaped sinuos filament at its core. The whole area is very bright and likely correlates with some low level flaring. In addition there is also a new active region on the same longitude as 11087, but in the soouthern hemisphere, this could well prove to be interesting in the days ahead...

Next up colourised with todays proms - none of which were huge, but there were quite a few and they were quite interesting at higher magnification.

Both taken with DS40 f16 PL130M

Next up close ups of AR11087, and beneath it the new currently undesignated active region...

DS40 f20 DMK31

There was some nice prom activity today on the north eastern limb, which I think frames nicely with ar11087, so I thought i'd go for a 'one shot' of the region...

And one of the north western limb...

I could already see the haze of arriving cirrus on the horizon so moved quick to get in a few prom shots. This one is of the south western limb...

Same prom, plus one just north of the solar equator, rotated to fit...

Prom shots were taken with SM40 f20 DMK31.I couldn't resist a CaK shot just to see the expanse of 11087, and just managed this before the clouds finally rolled in bringing the days proceedings to a halt...

CaK PST f16 PL130M

Hope you like them!

Thanks for looking, Mark

Sunday 4th July

Another day of intermittent cloud, however in the briefest of gaps I managed to get a full disk image.



The whirlpool spot is still there, as is the quiescent filament in the northern polar region. Not many proms of note today, however there were 2 bright areas of plage on the eastern limb either side of the equator. Plenty of small filaments aswell - the one to the east of the spot has the appearance of the silhouette of a seagull in flight.

Taken with DS40 f16 PL130M

Saturday 3rd July

A day of intermittent cloud finally allowed me to image in the afternoon. Seeing and transparency were remarkably good and allowed for a nice contrasty disk to be recorded. There are a couple of proms visible on the NE and NW limb along with a large quiescent filament across the northern meridian. The large spot is roughly 2 earth diameters in size, and shows an unusual 'whirpool' pattern of field lines spiralling around it. Reminds me of a hurricane storm sytstem.

Taken with the DS40 @ f16 PL130M

Sometimes black and white images look better, sometimes colour, today was one of those days when it is all down to personal preference. Here is the colour version so you can decide which one you like best!