AR12768 in Ha with the HaT - 3rd August

The seeing was obliging first thing this morning and so I decided to give the 8" Airylab HaT a run to see what I could get on the cycle 25 activity we have at the moment.  Conditions were just about holding up using this aperture and I was using.  The Daystar Quark and an IMX174 camera was used to image.  I was surprised at how much bright plage there still was in this quite rapidly decaying active region.

Ha Full Disk 3rd August

The sun really is starting to pick up in terms of activity as can be seen on todays full disk image.  Taken with a Lunt 50mm etalon on a 60mm f6 scope and double stacked with the Daystar Quark.

AR12768 & AR12769 in CaK 2nd August

I was very lucky to catch excellent seeing first thing on Sunday morning before the clouds rolled in.  Both these active regions have very small sunspots which suggests a relatively low magnetic field strength, however, we are only just at the start of cycle 25.  Taken with the 100mm Tal refractor at f27 with the Airylab 2.7x telecentric and the FLIR IMX174 camera.  There is lots of fine detail in these images when viewed full size!

AR12767 in CaK 2nd August

Glad to have caught this small sunspot just before it headed over the limb, probably wont see it re-emerge in 2 weeks time, but there may be some plage that returns.  Taken with the 100mm scope at f27 and the FLIR IMX174 camera.

CaK Full Disk 2nd August

Activity is really starting to pick up again on the sun as can be seen in this overview calcium image with all the bright areas of plage.  Taken with the 60mm f16 scope and the ICX814 chipped camera.

Flame Proms and Coronal Rain 31st July

As I came to the close of yesterdays imaging session I couldn't resist a go at imaging the flame prom that has been around for the past couple of days.  I managed 8 individual images before the hard disk was full, and after processing to my surprise was the considerable amount of movement of plasma in the individual frames.  At nearly 200,000km high this prominence showed quite active coronal rain falling back towards the solar surface.  Taken with the 118mm scope at f27, with a daystar Quark and a FLIR IMX174 Grasshopper 3 camera.

AR12768 in CaK 31st July

Taken with the 118mm scope at f27 (127mm scope stopped down to 118mm to give f10, and then 2.7x telecentric) I was keen to remind myself how this performed at these shorter wavelengths.  It is considerably softer than my 100mm Tal, but it does just about work, at 656nm it is a much stronger performer and does well when the seeing allows it.  I still think a 150mm f8 scope stopped down to 120mm would give better results and this is on the radar of my shopping list.