Sunday 23 March 2014

CaK Full Disk, Spicule Ring & Proms 23rd March


Sunday was a mixture of sunshine and showers, more showers if the truth be told.  However in the gaps in between the big towering cumulus clouds there were lovely deep blue skies, the seeing conditions weren't great, but the sun was out so all was good.  I seem to have finally sorted out the reflections and ghost images in my homemade CaK filter system, with the reflections being well out of the field of view.  As a result this has helped notch up the contrast another level, and as a result the spicule ring is seen quite clearly around the whole of the solar limb, as are the prominences that were visible today.  It is also just possible to make out the tenuous outline of the filaments that were visible around 5 o'clock on the solar disk.  This shot was taken with the tiny 40mm scope at f20 with the DMK31.  I did try the 100mm scope today, but there was a reflection / ghost from the internally mounted triband ERF was very obvious after seeing the crystal clear images from the 40mm;  I may revert back to using the Lunt solar wedge as an ERF in the 100mm scope to completely remove any ghosts from this imaging rig.  I've just ordered a Vixen 70mm f10 scope with the view of producing high res full disks and medium scale close ups when the seeing doesn't allow me to use the 100mm, I will use the Beloptik tri-band ERF externally on this as the tilt of it will be much easier to control in this situation.  It's less than a week now until the clocks go forward, which is most definitely good news for solar observing - more time to observe on the evenings after work.