Ha Full Disk - 15th July

Ha Full Disk 2, a photo by Mark Townley on Flickr.

Sunday 15th July dawned with rare clear, deep blue skies and provided the first opportunity since May to get a full disk. Glad I did!

AR11520 - Solar Seas of Plasma - 11th july

ar11520, a photo by Mark Townley on Flickr.

Only the briefest of cloud gaps this afternoon allowed me to setup and then record this image: Monster active region AR11520 still has a delta class magnetic field and is more than capable of producing x-class flares, however has remained fairly quiet in the last 24 hours. In the mean time rivers of solar plasma readily flow like rivers in and around its component spots. Any flare activity now is squarely geo-effective as this maelstrom sits mid disk on our star, and so the risk of a storm is considerably higher...

Taken with the 127mm PST mod at 1900mm fl DMK31.

Monster Active Region AR11520 - 8th July

ar1519 ar1520 colour earth, a photo by Mark Townley on Flickr.

As new active region AR11520 rounds the limb it is crackling with a complex Beta - Gamma magnetic field that harbours an 80% chance of M-class solar flares over the next 24 hours. The bright white areas in the photo are much smaller C-class flares that are continuosly crackling away. At over 127,000km in length it is over 10 times the size of Earth. Definitely worth keeping an eye on this one over the coming days as it gradually becomes more geo-effective and the risk from solar storms to Earth increases.

Taken with the 127mm PST mod @ 1900mm fl DMK31.

AR11514 8th july

ar1514 colour, a photo by Mark Townley on Flickr.

Departing active region 11514 displays a small C class flare as it heads over the limb...

AR11518 8th July

ar1518 colour, a photo by Mark Townley on Flickr.

Not the most active area on the sun, but never the less an interesting region... 127mm 1900mmfl DMK31

Assembling / Disassembling a PST Etalon

Well with all the poor weather we have been having this summer, and real lack of opportunity to get any imaging / observing in I decided following  seeing the patent drawings to take a look at how the PST etalon assembly was made.  For some time now I have thought that misalignment of the etalon within its housing is the likely cause of uneven illumination and bandpass across the field of view when in use, and looking inside at the rubber compression system that tunes the etalon my thoughts were reinforced. 

This video shows how to disassemble and reassemble a PST etalon housing - usual rules apply - don't blame me if it goes wrong for you!

AR11513 & AR11516 1st July

ar11513 ar11516, a photo by Mark Townley on Flickr.

I didn't think I would get to image today, grey skies and my thermometer was reading 12c at 11.00am (yes it is July!), however by late afternoon the skies were breaking and despite the 'haze' of the next batch of weather encroaching I managed to get this one frame of active regions AR11513 & AR11516, despite NASAs verdict that these are decaying they have been crackling with C class flares throughout the day.

This is second light with the 127mm PST mod - i thought I was wasting my time with imaging today, the seeing in the cloud gaps really wasn't very good, however i'm really quite pleased as to what Avistack has recovered from the raw data. It really does hold promise for if we actually get any decent sunny weather anytime soon here in the UK.

I'm also looking to modify the etalon holding cell from the PST - there is some lateral 'slack' in it, that causes the image to grade from being on band to slightly off band across the frame. It is possible to tweak this to an 'ideal', but is fiddly. More cloud and rain is forecast in the coming week so this will be my project!