I couldn't resist this sunset shot taken from the river Severn in Worcester the other day. All of a sudden and for only about 15 minutes the sun lit up the sky in a fiery orange glow that reflected in the river. Then the clouds suddenly turned back to their usual dulcet grey tones.
A quick full disk before work on friday morning, with the Lunt 50 etalon on the ED60 F6 scope and the 2x cemax barlow along with the FLIR GH3 ICX916M camera. The sun is essentially blank with no real proms, a small bright spot had rotated around the limb and will be interesting to see if this develops into anything in the days ahead.
Taken with the 40mm f10 scope, along with a 2x cemax barlow, homebrew CaK filter and the FLIR GH3 ICX916M camera. The sun is pretty much blank all bar a couple of bright points in mid northern latitudes; these may be a sign of the sub surface jetstream associated with cycle 25. Maybe?
After the past weeks with all the activity that we have been having the sun is now completely blank - nothing to see at all, even the proms are small and faint. Taken the Lunt50 etalon, 60mm f6 scope, 2x cemax barlow and the FLIR GH3 ICX916M camera.
Today was the last day with the spell of good weather that we've been having this last week, and throughout the sun has has something on show. Active region AR12741 is slowly but surely decaying and is unlikely to survive another rotation to return as a sunspot, possibly plage? We'll have to see in 2 weeks time. Taken with a Lunt 50 etalon on the ED60 f60 scope with a 2.5x barlow and the FLIR GH3 ICX916M camera.
There is still a lot of activity visible at CaK wavelengths as the pair of active regions march towards the limb. Taken with the 40mm f10 OTA with a 2x Cemax barlow and the FLIR GH3 ICX814 camera.
Clear skies for another morning meant I was able to image again before work, seeing was good and the scope of choice was the ED60 with the 50mm Lunt etalon. A 2x cemax barlow increased the image scale for the FLIR GH3 ICX814 camera. There is still quite a bit of activity for the next couple of days. I wonder if this active region will return again in 2 weeks? I think in CaK there will still be plage visible even if all signs of the spots have gone.
Despite some bands of haze / cloud on the eastern horizon I managed to get a full disk before I went to work. Taken with the ED60 and a Lunt50mm etalon.
My favourite views from today were with the double stacked Ha setups, where active regions revel in contrast and detail. This full disk was taken with the Lunt 50 etalon double stacking on the Coronado SM90ii. There are lots of small proms visible and is well worth double clicking to view full size. Taken with the FLIT GH3 ICX814 camera.
Taken with the Solarmax SM90ii scope double stacked with the Daystar Quark, the seeing was making things very difficult and I never got an image with this setup I was 100% happy with. There was lots of activity in this active region and is still reasonably active, I think would have made for a nice time lapse.
Using the same setup as with the full disk image, but instead using a 3x barlow in the nose of the FKIR GH3 ICX814 camera gives a nice image scale. The 2 active regions looked impressive as they neared the limb.
Finally finished tweaking with the homebrew CaK filter to throw reflections far from the suns disk. The image was taken with the SW ED80 stopped down to 60mm. I was struggling with the seeing today, and this reflects in the spicule ring which is undefined, I know when seeing is good the spicule ring is well defined at this aperture.
Swapping out the Lunt wedge for the Daystar sodium Quark I decided to get a closeup of this pair of active regions. AR12741 was sporting a nice light bridge. The Quark is better than the wedge in the poorer seeing conditions, but 80mm aperture really was the limit of what this afternoon was allowing me to use.
With a couple of sunspots visible I decided to get out the Lunt Solar wedge with the Skywatcher ED80 and FLIR GH3 ICX814 camera. Been quite a while since i've done a whitelight shot!
Whilst this may appear to be a seemingly innocuous region of the sun with little or nothing happening it actually tells a story of features not seen in visible light. The two bright points mark the boundary of a coronal hole. A coronal hole has open magnetic field lines, and at it's boundary the sun has closed magnetic field lines, this produces a magnetic potential which gives the possibility of activity forming on the boundary line. While not ephemeral regions, these bright points represent an area where magnetic field lines are emanating from the surface of the sun. Taken with the Coronado SM90 double stacked with the Daystar Quark along with the FLIR GH3 ICX814 camera.
Taken with the Skywatcher Ed80 stopped down to 60mm AR12740 seems to still have some more activity in it as it rounds the face of the sun. Double click on the picture to see the larger version. Both prominences and the spicule ring are easily seen in this image taken with the Homebrew CaK filter, this has recently been tweaked to improve contrast in Calcium light.
Taken with the Coronado SM90 double stacked with a Daystar Quark this image shows the turbulent plage associated with AR12740 as it rounds the sun for a second time. Over the coming days the active region will become more geoeffective and will put on a better show for solar observers.
The great CaK experiment continues to reduce continuum leakage through this home brew filter and increase contrast. It is working to some effect with the spicule ring and proms both being visible in the larger version of this image (double click to see). Taken with the ED80 stopped down to 60mm for seeing conditions and improved control over spherical aberration.
A couple of full disk images from Saturday: First off taken at prime focus with the SM90 and ICX814 camera, secondly with a Lunt50 etalon double stacked with a Daystar Quark. Notice how features like filaments are more easily visible with the double stacked setup.
