I've really lucky this year to get as many images in as I have, though this has been helped by a neighbour who considerably cut down a tree that had been a blot on my southern horizon. This has given me a daily hour long window in the winter months to observe and image the sun.
As we start in 2012 the sun is showing plenty of activity as we approach solar max (even if it is a weak solar max!). There are filaments galore on todays disk, with the southern hemisphere being dominated by behemoth AR1389.
This is the first shot taken with my recently modded DS40 scope, more details can be found about this on Stephen Ramsdens excellent solar forum...
http://solarchat.natca.net/index.php/en/forum/12-solar-scope-modifications/4067-modified-sm40-a-story-of-evolution#4067
