One of the best views the sun has given us for sometime now!!!
Monday, 26 March 2012
AR11445 Light Bridge - A Day Later
A day on and the contorted light bridge of AR11445 is still present - the tenuos filaments arcing across one side of the spot to the other. Sadly this is a sign of a decaying sunspot, but regardless makes for a great sight! Taken with the 100mm frac @ 2500mm fl, continuum & fringe killer filters, Lunt wedge DMk31 camera.
Sunday, 25 March 2012
AR11445 Light Bridge
New active region 11445 is certainly an interesting one, and as can be seen here has a lovely light bridge crossing the main spot. Lots going on in this AR. Taken with the 100mm Tal refractor, 2.5x powermate, contnuum and fringe killer filters, Lunt wedge and DMK31 camera.
Sunday Afternoon Sun
Took another full disk this afternoon when all the haze of the morning skies had gone. The proms had really developed since this morning, a beauty! Now the clocks have gone forward it gives me an extra hours solar time too! :-)
AR11445
All these are closeups with the 100mm Tal refractor; first impressions are that it is really good at CaK wavelengths!
Sunday Morning Sun - 25th March
A bit hazy this morning, but really pleased with how this has come out. Lots happening on the sun at the moment!
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Ha Full Disk - 24th March
Saturday offered some of the most transparent skies of the year so far, and, also. coupled with periods of reasonable seeing... At first sight the sun seemed really quiet, with not much going on, however it was only with close inspection could be seen there was lots happening at a small scale. On the eastern limb the new active region (AR1445) that come over had a lovely set of post flare loops. This big active region announced its presence several days ago in the form of a huge towering prominence and can be seen in previous blog entries. I hope sunday offers clear skies too!
CaK Full Disk 24th March
Taken with the 70mm frac @ f9. The sun is starting to show a bit more activity now, and at CaK wavelengths is always pretty!
White Light Full Disk - 24th March
Taken with the 70mm frac @ f12, Lunt wedge, continuum filter & fringe killer. DMK31.
Finally somemore spots appear on the face of our sun!
AR11445
A new active region for the weekend, this is the one responsible for the huge prom that was on the suns eastern limb for the past several days. These close ups were taken with the Tal100RS, Lunt wedge and 705nm TiO2 filter.
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Spring Sunshine & A New Colour Scheme - March 20th
3 days in a row for me with sun so far - must be a record! The prom on the eastern limb just keeps getting bigger and bigger as rotates into view and now is larger than Jupiter(!) On a smaller scale, the filaprom on the southern polar region is still there too!
I tried out a new colour scheme that was being discussed on Stephen Ramsdens Solar Chat Forum (link opposite top) and have to say I prefer it over my previous pallette, so will be giving it a go!
Monday, 19 March 2012
Mondays Monster Prom - 19th March
For the past couple of days this prom has been growing in stature on the limb. Looking at the STEREO data it's associated with an active region that should be easily visible by mid week...
Ha Full Disk Colour - 19th March
One of the largest proms i've seen for a while visible today! For the second day running a delicate filaprom was visible on the suns south pole. The filaments in the west had lots of fine detail visible too.
Ha Full Disk - 18th March
Grotty weather all weekend finally broke to clear skies late sunday afternoon. Nowhere near as active a disk a week ago, but photogenic never the less! High pressure is forecast for the week ahead, so hopefully more images to come in the afternoons after work...
Monday, 12 March 2012
Ha Full Disk - 12th March
A grey start to the day broke to beautiful clear skies just before I was due to finish work - fantastic! Todays sun did not disappoint either!!! The only thing that could be better is if the solar southern hemisphere was as active as the northern... Cant wait to see the proms we get as AR1429 passes over the limb - should be interesting... Looks to be plenty more coming round from the back of the sun in the next couple of days too!
Sunday, 11 March 2012
AR1429 - 11th March
Not many days left now till this behemoth passes over the limb. In the mean time I thought I would try out my new Tal100RS refractor and grab a capture. This was taken with the 2.5x powermate giving a fl of 2500mm, the TiO2 filter was used, along with the KG3 for additional blocking, shot taken with the DMK31. The image was stacked using Autostakkert 2 which I have to say does a really good job compared to avistack or registax...
White Light Full Disk - 11th March
Todays trio of full disks wouldn't be complete without this one; taken with the 70mm frac @ f12, Lunt wedge, continuum filter, KG3, DMK31. 6 Panes assembled and processed in CS4...
CaK Full Disk - 11th March
Lottsss going on in this image; micro flaring at several locations on the globe, and also a rare CaK filament in AR1429...
Cak Proms - 11th March
Don't do these very often, but they were relatively easy to see today so took a pic!
Ha Full Disk - 11th March
Second day out for the KG3 replacement for the rusted ITF filter and much better results today. Nice and sharp in focus image, the effect of the KG3 on the liveview whist capturing the avi is apparent - midtone contrast is really enhanced and the sky background is much darker making it easier to bring out the proms. I also modded the focuser on the host scope today to try and square things up optically a bit more. This was after this image had been taken so any effects won't be seen until the next sunny day - hopefully tomorrow!
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Ha Full Disk 10th March - KG3 Glass
I spent today with the scopes setup for the whole of the day, and finally got a half hour window to image.
I removed the rusted ITF from my coronado blocker earlier this year, however looking into this I found the decrease in exposure I was getting was due to an infrared leak, this was causing a blooming in the image due to thermal loading on the CCD chip - the net effect was a unpleasant decrease in the signal to noise ratio.
Things are remedied now - I have used a peice of KG3 glass in place of the ITF, this effectively blocks IR way out to 5000nm, much better than the spec of the original instrument. When conditions improve and I can actually image in blue skies this should really start to show in the Ha images... Exciting times ahead!
I removed the rusted ITF from my coronado blocker earlier this year, however looking into this I found the decrease in exposure I was getting was due to an infrared leak, this was causing a blooming in the image due to thermal loading on the CCD chip - the net effect was a unpleasant decrease in the signal to noise ratio.
Things are remedied now - I have used a peice of KG3 glass in place of the ITF, this effectively blocks IR way out to 5000nm, much better than the spec of the original instrument. When conditions improve and I can actually image in blue skies this should really start to show in the Ha images... Exciting times ahead!
A New Scope For Solar
Today was first light for my latest solar scope; a Tal100RS - a 100mm f10 refractor from Russia. I only got very brief views today through cloudy skies, but with the Lunt solar wedge, continuum filter and 15mm televue plossl the view was very good - AR1429 is huge! I'm hoping to be able to get more use out of this scope than I have with my 127mm frac, as the smaller 100mm is less susceptable to my frequent poor seeing. Ultimate plan with this scope is for it to be a donor ota for a PST mod - which would give me a 100mm Ha scope - nice! Watch this space for developments...
Monday, 5 March 2012
Ha Full Disk 5th March - 3 Degrees Above The Horizon!
I was hoping to get home this evening a bit earlier than I did, however still managed to grab a capture of the sun. With giant active region 1429 on show was definitely one not to miss! The sun was only a couple of degrees above the horizon, and if you look carefully will see it's normally round shape is subtley distorted. Fingers crossed for clear skies and an early finish on tuesday!
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Ha Full Disk - 4th March
Our star is buzzing with activity at the moment - just as I started imaging today 3 active regions started minor flaring pretty much simultaneously following the major M class flare from AR1429 earlier in the day. Hopefully be able to get somemore shots in in the evenings ahead if skies stay clear!
Ha Full Disk - 3rd March
Absolutely loads of interesting things going on in this hydrogen alpha image! The mini-erf has been removed on the coronado BF10 but when replaced with a Baader neodymium filter contrast increases significantly but keeps the exposure short. Not entirely sure what is going on here - my theory is that without the mini ERF there is some IR leak, and with the neodymium in place this is blocked. Whatever the reason this looks like will be a permanent feature on my ha solar setup!
CaK Full Disk - 3rd March
Whilst the sun in white light may be quiet, there is always plenty to see at CaK wavelengths. This image was generated using autostakkert, while I like the results from it I do say i prefer avistack2 for its ability to handle batches of files, and also to be able to apply flats and darks to an image. Taken with the 70mm frac @ f9, Baader-Nado homebrew filter, 6 pane mosaic assembled using photomerge in CS4. All sharpening was done using Iterative Unsharp Mask. Not a wavelet in sight...
White Light Full Disk - 3rd march
taken with the 70mm frac @ f11, 705nm TiO2 filter, Lunt wedge and DMK31 camera. This is a 6 pane mosaic assembled in Imerge...
AR1429 - 3rd March
First views of behemoth spot forming part of AR1429. This one is going to be very active over the next couple of weeks!
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