The sun at first glance seems surprisingly quiet at the moment; this image is dominated by the nice arching prominence, however look to the centre of the image and there is a small brighter spot, this is a bright point in the latitudes we would expect cycle 25 activity. Further to the right of this a small filament is also coexistent at the same latitudes. Activity is there, it is only small scale and small field strengths but is there if you know where to look. Taken with the Coronado SM90 double stacked with the Daystar Quark and the new Grasshopper 3 IMX174 camera.
Trying out my new FLIR Grasshopper 23S6M camera with IMX174 chip this morning; I double stacked the Quark onto the Coronado SM90. I was pleased with the level of detail I was getting and the fast frame rate certainly helps with the seeing at these longer focal lengths. This region of turbulent plasma on the Sun marks the position where there have been active regions and sunspots for the past couple of solar rotations.
A quick full disk before work on Thursday taken with the SM90 at prime focus with the FLIR Grasshopper 3 ICX916M camera. The region rotating into view on the limb is where we have had active regions for a few rotations.
The suns southern pole was where it was all happening on Saturday, a small surge took place just off the edge of the limb as can be seen in this animation spanning just over 10 minutes. A small filament forming part of a solar crown can also be seen along with the faint bright points associated with polar faculae. This was taken with the Coronado SM90 double stacked with the Daystar Quark. The FLIR Grasshopper 3 ICX916M camera was used to make this animation.
The sun was very quiet in Ha viewed on the full disk scale, taken with the SM90 and FLIR Grasshopper 3 ICX916M camera.
Using the 100mm Tal refractor at 3000mm focal length to get in closer on the suns southern polar region, the small area of plage is associated with cycle 25. The spicule ring is also faintly visible on the limb.
Using the 100mm Tal and the 3x barlow to close in on some of the plage on the solar equator associated with cycle 24. The inverse granulation pattern in CaK is just starting to show through in this image.
