Monday 29 December 2014

CaK Sun Through The Trees - 29th December

This time of year the sun hugs the southern horizon and for weeks from my usual observing site just skims through the branches of the trees.  It had been over a month since I got any observations in and today had enough, so, regardless of trees I decided to get some images in and make the most of the blue skies that followed the coldest night of 2014.  The low sun is possibly the worst time to observe, but an image is better than none.  This shot was taken with the 40mm scope at 400mm focal length with the homebrew CaK filter and the DMK31 CCD camera.

AR12251 C2 Flaring 29th December

The sun was already starting to pass back into the trees when I took this image as can be seen from the 'smudge' on the right hand side of the picture.  AR12251 was crackling with a very minor C2 flare at the time.  Taken with the DS40 at 560mm focal length with the DMK31 camera.

Ha Full Disk 29th December

I didn't think I would get any views in this December at all, the weather hasn't been great and coupled with the low sun and trees on the southern horizon getting ever taller (we need a good storm!), however following the coldest night of 2014 I decided to just get the scope out and try shooting through the trees to see if the stacking process would average the branches out, well they did.  This shot was taken with the DS40 at 400mm focal length with the DMK31 camera.  There was some small C1 flaring going on in the small active regions at the time.  A pretty quiet sun, but definitely better than no sun at all!