AR12768 in Ha 31st July

This active region appears to be slowly dying back, with the sunspots getting smaller, however it's magnetic influence still occupies a good portion of sun.  Taken with the 118mm scope at f27 with the Daystar Quark and IMX174 camera.

Ha Full Disk 30th July

I seem to have sorted out the issue of pinched optics on the 60mm f6 donor scope that I use for my full disks, and now the whole of the sun remains in focus which is good.  It's nice to see so much activity on here for a change and is a sure sign that cycle 25 is slowly but surely kicking in with more activity.  Taken with the 50mm Lunt etalon on the 60/f6 and then double stacked with a Daystar Quark to increase contrast and bring out detail.

AR12768 in Ha 30th July

This active region while only having a very small collection of small sunspots in it, certainly covers a decent area on the sun indicating the magnetic fields are they just not very strong.  This image was taken with the 118mm scope at f27 which gives nice results and nice image scale, especially when the seeing cooperates.

AR12767 in Ha 30th July

There's not much life in this sunspot, but it is the start of cycle 25 so is only to be expected. Taken with the 118mm at f27 with the IMX174 camera.

Ha Full Disk 6th July

It has been a while since i've seen a full disk with quite so much activity as this one, yes there are no sunspots or active regions, but there is plenty of plage activity and filaments that show signs of cycle 25 magnetism just below the surface at the higher latitudes, there is even some relic cycle 24 activity floating around the equator.  All this is a positive sign the solar doldrums are slowly going behind us.  Taken with a Lunt50 etalon double stacked with a Daystar Quark on a 60mm f6 scope.  A Baader solar telecompressor was used to get the image on the chip of the FLIR Grasshopper 3 camera.

Cycle 25 Activity 6th July

Using the 100mm Tal refractor, 2,7x Airylab telecentric and a Daystar etalon I closed in on the region of activity in the southern hemisphere.  Sporting a filament showing the divide in polarity of a region of magnetism, and also a area of brighter plage were visible.  Given their low latitudes this indicates it is activity associated with the new solar cycle.

CaK Full Disk 6th July

The weather here in the UK really hasn't been great following summer like weather in spring, and now, autumnal weather in summer.  Maybe autumn will see a return to summer?  Fortunately some late afternoon sunshine allowed me some brief views of our star.  Viewing in CaK at 60mm aperture with f16 at both the filter and chip revealed the sun has quite a lot of plage visible at the moment, and while this is only small scale it is abundant and indicative of the cycle 25 jet stream bands of magnetism sat just below the solar surface.