This is the only activity to speak of on the sun at the moment, and with a decaying magnetic field no longer poses a threat for any M-class flare activity. Taken with the Skywatcher ED80 stopped down to 60mm at ~1400mm focal length with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
Not much other than a region of decaying plage is what can be seen here in this active region as it headed towards the limb in this image taken with the Skywatcher ED80 stopped down to 60mm at ~1400mm focal length with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
The seeing conditions were awful on sunday afternoon were awful in the unstable air following the passage of a cold front, but at least they offered clear skies, and, with the seeming distinct lack of good weather lately you have to make the most of every opportunity. The disk was surprisingly blank in CaK light, with a area of place passing towards and over the western limb, and a small active region with some small spots just off mid disk. Taken with the homebrew CaK filter, 40mm scope at ~500mm focal length and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
Not a huge amount happening on the disk today, a few active regions, and interesting a southern polar crown in the form of a filament - indicative of the phase we are in with the solar cycle. Proms looked great through the eyepiece though. Taken with a 50mm Lunt etalon on a 40mm f10 scope with the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
The weather was frustrating today, it was gloriously sunny until the moment I looked through the scope when the clouds duly arrived. The rest of the day was shooting in the gaps between the clouds. The seeing wasn't too bad at times, and as a result I decided to get the 100mm Tal refractor out with the CaK filter at 2000mm focal length. Taking 1000 frame files meant the stacking software had something to work with, and as a result I was quite pleased with the resultant image of these small spots. The PGR Chameleon 3 camera was used.
The sun is very quiet at the moment, with only a few small spots and small regions of plage. This shot was taken with the 40mm scope at ~500mm focal length with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
Conditions were far from ideal with high cloud and haze affecting transparency throughout the imaging session, but I was pleased to get a closeup image of the lovely filaprom that was passing over the western limb. Taken with the 127mm Meade AR5 refractor, a double stacked Daystar Quark Chromosphere and a PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
I love the furry texture of the plasma in the chromosphere in this limb image, there is active regions buried away beneath it, but they are difficult to see in this image taken with the Daystar Quark with it's transmission profile modified to have steeper sides and reduced transmission in the wings and shoulders to reduce continuum leakage. This is taken with the 127mm Meade AR5 refractor and the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
I like how the spot in the active region is buried deeply in the plasma of the chromosphere. I think if the conditions allowed (it wasn't so hazy!) this would have been a great candidate for an animation to show running penumbral waves. Taken with the 127mm Meade AR5 scope, Beloptik tri-band ERF, Daystar Quark and the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera. I'm quite pleased with the initial results from this setup as it fills a nice gap between my 80mm scope and the 203mm Airylab HaT when conditions don't allow me to use the larger scope.
This little area was at the time the image taken un-named, but it does look like it will develop into a fully fledged active region. Conditions were too poor for effective use of the HaT today so I decided to give the 127mm Meade AR5 a go with the Daystar Quark. It worked quite well, but the Beloptik tri-band cuts just a little too much light for my liking, so may replace it for a Baader D-ERF instead. Using the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
This small active region has a central spot that is partially hidden in the plasma in the chromosphere. Taken with the ED80, Daystar Quark and the PGR Blackfly IMX249 camera.
As AR12585 approached the solar limb it looked very photogenic surrounded by a host of filaments, filaproms and prominences. Looking through the eyepiece this was a joy to look at. Taken with the skywatcher ED80, Daystar Quark and the PGR Blackfly IMX249 GigE camera.
A lovely big prominence visible today in this image taken with a Lunt 50 etalon at focal length of ~500mm with the PGR Chameleon 3 camera. It is taking a bit of doing to get this (double stack) etalon to work like this, but, I think i'm slowly getting there with it!
The high cloud and haze was not supporting hi-res imaging in CaK wavelengths this morning, but it was nice to zoom in a little on both of these active regions using the 60mm scope at 1500mm focal length with the PGR Chameleon 3 and the homebrew CaK filter.
Things have been pretty busy this past month with one thing or another, and is the first time i've managed to get any solar imaging in for virtually a month! It was nice to see todays full disk in calcium light with the 40mm scope at ~500mm focal length with the PGR Chameleon 3 camera and home brew CaK filter. Quite a bit going on considering we are heading into solar minimum.
It was just getting dark on the evening of Wednesday 31st august and with a Kp4 forecast for northern lights it wasn't long until it they started to show themselves in the twilight sky. The aurora was very dynamic, and, at times bright too, illuminating the landscape and surroundings. This is a 30 minute timelapse with 4 images a minute taken with the Canon 350D, iso800, 30s exposure with the Sigma 10mm f4 lens. I also worked out how to apply a flat in photoshop to remove the hot pixels from the ageing Canon 350D that was quite effective, next step will be to apply this and also to apply some data from magnetometers to produce a sound track to the 'HD' version of the animations i've captured over the 2 weeks I recently spent in Iceland.
