Less than ideal conditions didn't allow me to use any more aperture, but still got a nice view of these small active regions, if the weather allows over the coming days it will be interesting to see how they develop. Taken with the ED60 at 1050mm focal length with the PGR Chameleon 3 (IMX265) and the homemade CaK filter.
I got up for sunrise this saturday morning as I knew whatever sunshine there was would be short lived with weather coming in from the north west. I was glad I did, AR12537 was right on the limb and was showing a lovely surge prom jet. Taken with the ED60 at 1050mm focal length with the PGR Chameleon 3 (IMX265) with the homemade CaK filter.
Finally a bit of activity to see on the sun again. It was looking nice in CaK at 6.30am this morning before the clouds rocked in. Taken with the 40mm scope at 550mm focal length with the PGR Chameleon 3 (IMX265) with the home made CaK filter.
The seeing was far from great when I took this image, but in only 8 frames spanning just 3 minutes it is possible to see how much movement takes place on the sun at this scale. There are also hints of the running penumbral waves. Taken with the HaT at 5.6m focal length with the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera and a Daystar Quark.
This little active region was not showing much in the way of spots, rather just a brighter patch of plage and a few small patches of filament. The image was taken with the 203mm Airlyab HaT at 5.6m focal length with a Daystar Quark and the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera with tilting to remove interference fringes.
AR12533 is a pretty small and quiet active region, but pretty never the less. A new smaller as yet undesignated spot can also be seen just on the limb. Taken with the 60mm scope at 1050mm focal length with the PGR Chameleon 3 (IMX265) and the homebrew CaK filter.
Even though the sun was low and I had the focal length racked up, I was able to compensate for the reduction in exposure time and oversampling of the image by doing 2x2 binning of the pixels on the PGR Chameleon 3 (IMX265) camera. This still gives a nice resultant image that is noticeably sharper than by not binning. Taken with the Skywatcher ED80 stopped down to 60mm aperture with the homebrew CaK filter.
Apart from a few active regions and brighter areas of plage, activity still remains quite low on the sun. Taken with the 40mm scope at 550mm focal length with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon 3 (IMX265) camera.
A view of this active region with the 203mm Airylab HaT at 5.6m focal length with a PST / Quark etalon double stack combo. Managed to get some half decent seeing for this shot, although it's still not reached the full resolving potential of this solar canon. Still, there are some nice small scale details visible in this shot taken with the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
Taken with the Airlylab HaT at 203mm aperture, 4.2m focal length achieved with the Baader solar telecompressor with a PST etalon double stacked with a Daystar Quark, I did 2x2 binning of the PGR Grasshopper 3 which with it's then pseudo 6.9um pixels gives a perfect sampling rate for this set up. It also gives blisteringly fast exposure time of just 3ms which has the effect of freezing the seeing in some pretty dire conditions. Other added bonus of this is that the frame rate of the camera is increased and time for stacking is also reduced. An interesting setup to try again...
A couple of animations taken with the 100mm Tal100R refractor, 2000mm fl for the upper image, 1400mm fl for the lower image. These are near perfect image scale for the 3.45um pixels of the PGR Chameleon 3 camera, and with it large 2048x1536 pixel chip makes it easy to crop out regions like this and still get good image scale. There are some really quite interesting movements of plasma when you start looking at the animations carefully.
Taken with the Skywatcher ED80 stopped down to 60mm, this is a 2 pane mosaic taken with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera. Click on the image for a full size view, the prominences and spicule ring are easily visible.
A close up of huge AR12529 in CaK light taken with the 40mm scope at 1100mm focal length using the PGR Chameleon 3 (IMX265) camera. The small 3.45um pixels give great image scale at these short wavelengths.
Some sunny gaps in between the clouds on a snowy April morning gave me just enough time to get the 40mm scope out for a quick full disk at 550mm focal length with the PGR Chameleon 3 IMX265 camera.
Taken with the 100mm Tal100R refractor at a focal length of 1400mm with the PGR Chameleon 3 camera I was lucky to catch a small c class surge flare in the series of images I took over just a 10 minute period. This focal length with this telescope represents the idea focal length to pixel size for the Chameleon 3 without oversampling.
Taken at 2250mm focal length this image is way oversampled for the PGR Chameleon 3 and Tal100R, whilst it looks at when reduced down to this size for the web page, the original full size version is softer. Still, quite pleased with the results, especially as there are a few surging flares visible.
Testing out the PGR Chameleon 3 with the Tal100R refractor at 1400mm focal length; this is the ideal sampling frequency for this setup and gives some nice results. There are some interference fringes in 'straight through' format, but some slight tilt should sort this out easily. Quite pleased with results, and should work well in conditions when seeing is less than ideal, as was the case when these shots were taken.
The new PGR Chameleon 3 with it's 3.45um pixels is a great match for the shorter Calcium wavelengths, with the 40mm scope a focal length of some 700mm is ideal to give optial sampling, however to get a full disk in one on the chip like this I need to be running it at around 550mm focal length, which means that the image above is actually slightly under sampled. This has the added benefit that when the seeing isn't ideal the under sampling will worm in my favour to get a cleaner image. It looks good at the scale presented here in the body text, but when right clicked and viewed full size works even better to full effect! Taken with the home brew CaK filter.
The seeing really had collapsed with the arriving jet stream when I took this image with the Airylab HaT at 5.6m fl with the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera. Still nice to shoot at this image scale.
A really nice and interesting full disk from Sunday 10th april. with quite a lot happening on the disk. Taken with the TS40 at 700mm focal length with the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
The conditions really weren't up to what the HaT is capable of in terms of resolution yesterday with a raging jet stream in attendance, but it was nice to get a close up of this swirling active region at this scale. The active region looks quite fierce in it's appearance, but certainly at the moment it is quiet in terms of activity. Taken with the Airylab HaT at 5.6m focal length with the double stacked quark etalon and the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
The extra image scale afforded by the larger chip and smaller pixels of the PGR Chameleon 3 suits the smaller focal lengths needed for these full disks, but also results in a final disk nearly 1500 pixels in diameter. Poor conditions yesterday meant I didn't really have time to mess around with any settings, either on the camera or in terms of tuning the etalon. This was taken with the triple stack 40mm scope at somewhere around 550mm focal length.
I'm really pleased with how well this image has come out with the new PGR Chameleon 3 camera, this smaller pixel size (3.45um) and larger chip size (2048x1536) means it is ideal for the shorter wavelengths and focal lengths of this setup. Apart from the monster spot the sun is quiet at the moment though!
The seeing wasn't up to the 1900mm focal length I was using with the 60mm scope with the jet stream screaming overhead, but it gives a taste of image scale that is possible with the PGR Chameleon 3. The smaller pixels (3.45um) of this camera are better suited to the shorter wavelengths of CaK, than the longer wavelengths associated with Ha.
When I observed this area coming around the limb in the HaT a day earlier it looked as if there was an active region associated with it going by the filaments and plasma that could be seen. However looking in CaK wavelengths there is no spot visible. What is likely the case is that there was a spot (in the past!) but it has long since decayed, but the choppy plasma where it was remains. There are actually some faint proms and the spicule layer visible in this image taken with the 60mm scope at 1900mm focal length with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera. I have a PGR Chameleon 3 arriving very soon, and, with its smaller 3.45um pixels, compared to the 5.86um pixels of the Blackfly I am very keen to see how it performs in CaK wavelengths!
It was really pushing it with the wind with the Skywatcher ED80 stopped down to 60mm aperture to record this image at 1900mm focal length. This active region has potential for M-class flares according to NASA, but, I have to say, unless it develops a bit more I don't expect much from it before it passes over the limb in the next couple of days.
It feels like i've been neglecting calcium wavelengths lately, with my attention focused on big guns in Hydrogen Alpha, however today was way too windy for the big scopes and so made perfect opportunity to image smaller scale in CaK - the 40mm at 700mm was pretty much impervious to the buffeting action of the blustery wind. Things are starting to look really quiet on our star now as we edge closer to solar minimum. Still, at CaK wavelengths the plage in the chromosphere shows up really well.
Today was way too windy for the big scopes, which is a real shame, as while there is no large scale activity on our star today, there was lots at the smaller scale, which is ideal territory for the HaT! This was taken with the triple stacked 40mm scope at 700mm focal length with the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
When I looked on the suns eastern limb with the Airylab HaT, this tell tale signature of prominences told me that while I couldn't see the sunspot itself directly there was a new active region coming around the limb. This was with a Daystar Quark and PST etalon double stacked at a focal length of 5.6 metres with the PGR BLackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
A filaprom is a cross between a filament and a prominence, as a prominence rotates onto the disk, before it becomes a filament outright, as it hovers above both the surface and the limb it is known as a filaprom. Taken with the 203mm Airylab HaT at 5.6m focal length with a double stacked etalon and the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 CMOS camera.
This new little active region looked like it had the potential to develop a bit when I photographed it this morning, seemed to be crackling away on the smaller scale. Taken with the 203mm Airylab HaT at 5.6m focal length, with a double stacked etalon (Daystar Quark and PST), with a PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
This new active region has bubbled up in the last 24 hours or so, will be interesting to see if it develops into anything. Taken with the 203mm Airylab Hat at 5.6m focal length with the double stacked Daystar Quark and the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
This active region looks nowhere near as impressive as it did over the past week when it was geo-effective, now it looks quite demure! Taken with the Airylab HaT at 5.6m focal length with the double stacked Daystar Quark and the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
Starting to get the hang of things now, another 20 frame animation covering just under 15 minutes real time of AR12526 showing running penumbral waves and twisting, boiling plasma in and around the active region. Taken with the Airylab HaT at 7.25 metres focal length with the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera. This time the Daystar Quark is double stacked with a naked PST etalon. Whilst i'm pleased with this it is far from perfect as is still quite a bit off band. Still getting the hang of this new scope and etalon combination, it's taking some getting used to!
An interesting comparison of full disks here; both of the sun at roughly the same time, but taken with quite different setups. The first is taken with the triple stacked 40mm scope at 700mm focal length, the second with the single stacked Daystar Quark with a Baader TZ4 telecentric on the Skywatcher ED80 at a focal length of 2400mm. The resultant views are quite different, and with the second the Quark was on reflection not properly on band. Now I have the stock telecentric on the quark replaced with the TZ4 the aim will be to double stack this setup and try a full disk like that, which, if it works should give some interesting results! Camera used was the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249.
I trained the Airylab HaT onto these 2 filaments for merely 15 minutes and was surprised at the amount of movement that actually occurred. The spicules look like a cornfield blowing in the wind in this time lapse sequence. Taken at 203mm aperture, 5.6m focal length with the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
