There were clear(ish!) skies after work today and so decided to get the scope out to see what was happening on our star. Things are quiet but a trio of active regions were visible. Taken with the single stacked LuntLS50 and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera. I quite like the way this scope performs in single stack mode.
First real run this year with the 203mm Airylab HaT, and on one of the hottest days of the year the seeing was boiling away. Took several images with the Daystar Quark to get one that wasn't mush, and this one came out best. The sunspot was quite active at this scale. Camera was the PGR Chameleon 3.
I have been perplexed with the way my Lunt50 has been behaving lately however hoping that on Sunday this has been fixed. I decided to do a full disk animation and see how it held on band. This animation represents 2 1/2 hours on the face of our star. It is very quiet but looking at the full size version of the image shows some quite subtle changes over time.
The seeing was reasonably steady on sunday afternoon and I managed a nice closeup using the 40mm scope barlowed up to shy of 1000mm focal length, double clicking the image zooms quite a bit further in. Using the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon 3 usb camera.
Calcium wavelengths are great for spotting solar activity as it shows up white, and despite a virtually empty disk in whitelight there were 2 active regions easily seen at 393nm. This shot was taken with the 40mm scope at somewhere near 500mm focal length. The homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon were used.
The sun is all but blank at the moment, all bar a very small active region that contains a couple of pores, nearer the north eastern limb there is a small region of plage associated with a decaying active region. This image is the first proper white light full disk image I have got with my 60mm f6 scope I bought earlier this year. With it's short focal length it is easy to get the full disk in one on the frame with room to spare. The 2" Lunt solar wedge was used along with a 656nm Ha filter. I need to replace my solar continuum filter and try that for greater resolution.
One of those first thing in the morning shots, it's that time of year! The seeing was awful especially considering the apparently clear blue skies, still, nice to get some sun. It never ceases to amaze me what stacking software can do with what seems like very poor data. Taken with the 40mm f10 somewhere around 500m fl with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.
