Small Region of Plage Rounds The Limb - 31st July

Whilst still the sun is technically spotless, and as such this patch of plage visible in both Ha and CaK wavelengths shows signs of very small scale activity.  It is likely the remnants of previous active regions from last month completing another rotation, and, as such is more likely to diminish further in activity rather than increase.  This shot was taken with the Daystar Quark, Skywatcher ED80 and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.

A Good Day For Prominences, A Bad Day For Clouds - 30th July

The last day of June has brought some of the nicest prominences for a while following filaments that passed over the limb days ago. Even through the cloud they looked great, sadly the cloud was not going to break all day, so the animation above represents a typical view.  Taken with a pair of Lunt 50 etalons, Coronado BF15 and a PGR Chameleon 3 camera.

CaK Closeup 28th July

Using the skywatcher ED80 and 2.5x barlow lens with the PGR Chameleon 3 camera to get a little closer on this region of decaying plage before it heads over the suns limb.  It's unlikely to make a successful rotation after this.

CaK Overview - 28th July

The sun is quiet even in CaK light, with a small patch of plage about to pass over the western limb.  Taken with the ED80, Beloptik tri-band ERF, homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.

Departing Filaments - 28th July

A double stacked setup is a great way to improve contrast when viewing in Hydrogen Alpha light, as the bandpass of the filter has steeper sides and lets through less continuum leakage, which has the effect of making the contrast of features greater.  These filaments show up really well and reflect where on previous rotations there were active regions.  Once these clouds of plasma have gone in the next day the sun will be completely blank.  Taken with the Daystar Quark on the 60mm f6 refractor double stacked with a Lunt 50 etalon.  Camera was the PGR Ch3.

Ha Full Disk - 28th July

The sun is very quiet at the moment, just a few filaments associated with long dead active regions at the boundaries of opposite magnetic fields.  There were a few small prominences visible too.  The image was taken with a pair of 50mm Lunt etalons on the Tecnosky 60mm f6 scope along with a Coronado BF15 and the PGR Chameleon 3 camera.

Sometimes the Seeing Just Isn't Up to it... 27th July

I did some more experimenting with the solar seeing monitor with the firecapture plugin on Friday.  However despite this clever and powerful piece of software if the seeing is just not there then it simply isn't possible to pull good data from it.  The graph below shows this well; from 10am it was cloudy until about 10.25am, and the yellow line on the graph wiggling away shows the transparency was variable with the high cloud and haze passing through.  The seeing was variable though jumping up and down in the unstable air and wasn't really suitable for the larger apertures as this soft image of granulation taken with the the Daystar Sodium Quark and Airylab HaT shows.  Camera was the PGR IMX249.