The skies cleared in a fashion late this afternoon so I decided to get home quick from work and go for an image of the sun. Compared to a few days ago the face of our star is virtually blank. It was nice to be able to get an image though and this one was taken with the Lunt DS50 with the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
The time of year has arrived where for several months i'm able to observe the sun early in the morning before I leave for work; it's always a pleasant way to start the day. This morning our star was quiet all bar a decaying active region AR12706 visible as an area of bright white plage on the disk. A small sunspot was also visible. Image taken with the 40mm f10 scope running around 500mm focal length with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
If you take a look back at my recent full disks with the Lunt 50 there is a distinct haze and softness to the images. I had noticed that visually there was a bright offset circular patch when looking through the eyepiece, this was quite clearly an internal reflection, and some clearish skies this afternoon allowed a bit of experimentation that led me to conclude there was a reflection between the ITF on the blocking filter and the internal optics of the Lunt 50. Always the key to supressing a reflection is to use a circular polarising filter so I tried one on the nose of the blocking filter. Immediately through the eyepiece I was pleasantly surprised how black the background sky was now, and also how much more contrast there was on the disk. Exposure time was longer as might be expected, but still within what is acceptable at this image scale. The resultant image is also sharper. Taken with the Lunt DS50 and PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
As we head towards solar minimum activity on our star will get less and less, so it was a pleasant surprise earlier in the week to have both good weather here in the UK and also an active region rounding the suns eastern limb. The southerly plume brought some of the warmest April weather since 1947, and with the high temperatures wobbly seeing, but using the ED80 and double stacked Quark I was pleased with this shot of this active region - AR12706. The PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera was used,
A quick whizz overview of the sun from Friday 20th April. The full disk was taken with the 40mm scope somewhere around 500mm focal length, the closer view with the ED80 stopped down to 60mm. Both with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera. Nice to see a bit of activity for a change!
I was able to get home early after work on friday, and seeing as the sun was shining I decided to grab some solar images. First up some full disks, single and double stacked with the Lunt 50 and PGR Chameleon 3 camera. There are some stacking artefacts around the limb, but have since deleted the raw data so can't restack and can't be bothered to paint out. To be perfectly honest i'm just glad to see the sun!
After 2 weeks of virtually wall to wall cloud the sun was making fleeting appearances through some broken cloud on Monday afternoon. I got back from work and set the scope up but the haze, as indicated by the brightened background in this image, was thick. The visuals were better than this image, with a nice flame prom visible and a couple of very small active areas; sunspot activity was negligible though. Taken with the single stack Lunt 50 and PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
Hazy skies contributed to a bit of background glow on some of thursdays images, but I was pleased with how this prom shot turned out and the subtle detail within it, especially as it was taken with the new 60mm f6 scope. This was taken with a Daystar Quark and the PGR Blackfly IMX249 camera.
This has to be one of my favourite shots from Thursday and is worth clicking on to view full size. The seeing must have been playing ball for this image as got a lovely feathery edge to the Sun, along with some nice small scale detail in the prominence. Tenuous filaproms grace the surface too - these clouds of cooler plasma held aloft by magnetic fields. This shot was taken with the 60mm f6 scope along with a double stacked Daystar Quark and the PGR Blackfly IMX249 camera.
The sun is certainly getting quieter as we approach solar minimum, but that doesn't mean nothing is happening on our star, things are just smaller scale. This shot taken with the ED60 and double stacked Quark shows this well, with the small remnants of the old active region in the left of the picture, and a particularly small prom on the limb. I like the field of view this setup gives for this sort of thing.
Despite the clear blue skies the seeing wasn't up to the resolution of 8" aperture with the HaT, I shot a number of images and these are about the best that came out. Taken with a native Quark and PGR Blackfly IMX249 camera.
2 solar rotations ago at the start of February the winter sun was graced with the sight of an active region yielding a number of spots. A rotation later it emerged on the solar limb as nothing more than a region of plage. On it's second rotation it took a bit of rejuvenation and for a few days following some minor flaring very small spots briefly appeared. In calcium wavelengths this bright plage is easily seen, however in Ha wavelengths it can be see a region of churned plasma with a central dark filament forming the boundary between the opposing magnetic field lines of the ex-active region. This shot was taken with the 60mm f6 ED60 scope and double stacked Daystar Quark along with the PGR Blackfly IMX249 camera.
It was a case of look carefully on the sun on 5th April. At first sign there is nothing happening, but look closer and there are a number of very small filaments all over the face of the sun. The clouds of cool plasma are held aloft above the suns surface by magnetic fields. Proms were in a small scale and also short supply. Taken with the double stacked Lunt 50 and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
Finally some clear skies, and I must have forgot how to use the 40mm CaK scope as I did an awful attempt at focusing on this disk. All pretty quiet apart from the relic plage from our active region from a few rotations back visible mid disk. Taken using the home brew CaK filter and PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
