The spring Equinox occurred today at 10.28am, the point where the Earths equatorial plane crosses the Suns equatorial plane. The Suns disk is fairly blank at the moment, but the double stacked PST with it's enhanced contrast made the subtle dark filaments and brighter plage pop out compared to other wavelengths bringing a bit of interest to our star as we head into the depths of solar minimum. Taken at 400mm focal length with the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
Really nice to come home from work this afternoon to a bit of sunshine, even if it was low in the sky, definitely better than nothing! Isn't it quiet though, normally CaK shows quite bright emitters, but there is very little in the way to see plage wise. This was taken with the 40mm scope at 400mm focal length with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
Today really did seem like spring had finally arrived. It was blue(ish!) skies and in the sunshine actually felt warm. Sadly I was at work all day, but when I got back around 5ish was surprised just how high the sun still was in the sky, yes, the sky had a yellowish haze to it, but with an open front door I was able to set the Double stacked PST up to see what was happening. The disk shows not much, a couple of filaments and emerging flux regions, and some small proms. The image bounced all around the screen as the pier was mounted on suspended wooden floor boards, and with the disk only several degrees above the local horizon I just wanted to grab a quick image. It's not in tune on the eastern limb, but, this image is better than none and was a pleasure to get in a year with so little imaging taking place so far; hopefully this will improve in the future! The camera used was the PGR Chameleon 3.
Since Christmas the weather has been awful for me, with only a few clear days, normally when i'm at work, this is only my second session of 2017. It was a short one too, there was a low pressure system right over the top of us and I was observing through the eye of the storm. The sky was very hazy and this contributed to some brightening of the background in this image, but, it is much better than no image! There were a few small prominences which looked great visually through the 203mm HaT, but conditions were not going to let me image and closeups with the big scope. Instead I settled for a full disk with the double stacked Coronado PST at 400mm focal length and the PGR Chameleon 3. The main active region was crackling with plasma, but this was no flare! It's nice to see the sun after so long. Now that we are in meteorological spring I hope the weather starts clearing up a bit more!
The only real activity on the sun at the moment is in the northern hemisphere, with areas of bright plage. The larger of which has a few small spots and pores but nothing of note to speak of. This shot was take with the 40mm scope at 400mm focal length with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
The conditions were far from great, but in the depths of winter it is nice just to get an image of the sun as it skirts the roof lines and tree tops of the urban environment. Now into the start of february the sun climbs ever higher in our sky, and while it still dances with the urban obstructions it is visible for longer and longer each passing week. There was a small surge on the limb, and with a wispy filament it made for a frame with the Skywatcher ED80, Double stacked Daystar Quark and a PGR Chameleon 3 camera using 2x2 binning to try and tame the unsteady atmosphere.
This little decaying active region had very little other than a few plasma rifts going on, and, with a sun heading towards solar minimum is why a scope like the 0.2m Airylab HaT is the way forward. This 'wide field' shot was taken with a skywatcher ED80 and a double stacked Quark.
