Ha Full Disk 23rd February

The seeing was not great for the SM90 today - the spicule ring was just a featureless ring rather than the dancing forest of pampas grass it can be when conditions are good.  Still, despite the sun being devoid of the usual prominences there was a nice filament and region of plage approaching the limb.  Taken at 800mm focal length with the Grasshopper 3 ICX818 camera.

Plage Closeup in CaK - 23rd February

There was a patch of plage exiting the solar disk today from a relic active region from previous rotations.  Seeing was not great but I imaged at 2.5 focal length at 80mm aperture using the PGR Grasshopper 3 ICX814 using 2x2 binning to get a better sampling rate.  As with the full disk a smaller aperture would have likely yielded better results but on the whole i'm happy with this.

CaK Full Disk 23rd february

A far from ideal CaK full disk, but the first one i've been able to take in a while.  The sun was heading into the trees (see the shadow bottom right) and the seeing was less than ideal for the 80mm aperture used, but it does show that the 1000mm focal length used fits easily on the chip of the PGR ICX814 sensor.  Next time i'll try backing off the aperture to 60mm and see how I get on.  

Relic Active Regions Closeup - 9th February

The sun may at times appear to be blank and featureless but there is often the subtle details, here is a old relic active region from a few rotations ago revealing itself as nothing more than turbulent plage.  Taken with the SM90 and 2.5x barlow with the PGR Blackfly IMX249 camera.

Solar Minimum Sunshine 9th February

Nothing to see here, move along...  Saturdays disk is fairly typical of a solar minimum sun - the disk looks blank.  There is a small region of very decayed plage from active regions several rotations ago but that it is it on the surface.  The proms were the star of the show, and looked fantastic through the SM90 with an 18mm Coronado Cemax eyepiece.  This image is a composite disk / proms shot with the PGR GH3 ICX814 camera.  Poor seeing and haze were the order of the morning to give imaging that extra challenge, but it is nice to see the sun rising higher and higher in the sky with each passing week.  Wonder how long these conditions will last until we see the signs of cycle 25 becoming more predominant and obvious in the solar northern hemisphere?

Ha Full Disk With a New Setup - 3rd February

A new year and a new solar setup.  As mentioned in previous posts I have a PGR Grasshopper 3 with a ICX814 chip that gives a 9.1Mp image which is great for full disks up to 1000mm focal length.  I just bought a Coronado SM90ii, a rather nice scope that is fitted with a Feathertouch focuser.

With it's 800mm focal length the full disk fits comfortably on the ICX814 chip with room to spare, and with no newtons rings visible no tilt is needed either.  Todays conditions were hazy at best and the sun is still skirting in the top of the trees, but with each passing week it gets higher and conditions get better.  Looking forward to seeing what this scope is capable of this year!

Tangerine in the Trees - 4th January

More of an opportunity to try out some new kit rather than go for a decent image of the sun here, but also the first chance to image for many weeks!  The day after solar perihelion there was a brief gap in the ever so persistent cloud we seem to have been graced with for months and I had a brief window before the sun started to drift back into the tree line and low sky haze.  I have just had a Skywatcher AZ Gti Alt Az mount, a dinky little thing that can be picked up with one hand that is controlled via wifi.  With a payload of 5kg I figured it would be an ideal grab and go mount for when there's not much time available.  Today I tried it with my Technosky 60mm f6 with a Lunt 50 etalon.  I was also trying out my new full disk camera - a PGR Grasshopper 3 9.1Mp with the Sony ICX814 chip; this camera offers a chip size of 3376x2704 pixels, as a result I also used a Coronado 2x cemax barlow to fill up the chip with the solar image.  The camera allows a full disk up to about 1000mm focal length so will have some interesting possibilities.  I was pleased that absolutely no tilt was needed with the camera.  Clouds had already started to drift back so there was little time to concentrate on tuning the etalon, but it did reveal AR2732, an equatorial spot from the tail end of cycle 24, a few small proms were also visible.  Just nice to see our star for a change!