Ha Full Disk - 30th July

There be a storm coming in today! However was up early and out ready to beat the rapidly approaching bands of clouds. Only managed a full disk, Lunt50 etalon double stacked with the Quark, 0.7x telecompressor and the FLIR GH3 ICX916M camera.

There's lots happening on our star today! there are whole load of lovely proms, and with turbulent plage and filaments mid disk from the active regions we had back in April, also look carefully in the northern hemisphere mid latitudes, a feint but most definite line of filaments is there - this marks out the solar jet stream associated with where we will first see cycle 25 giving us activity. At the moment the field strength there is less than 1500 gauss (the limit accepted for spot formation) and so we see filaments being the dominant magnetic feature, but as the field strength gets more in the months ahead we should expect an increase in the magnitude of features associated.

CaK Closeup - 29th July

This image is a closeup of the region of plage that is visible in the full disk image in the post below.  Taken with the 100mm Tal100R refractor, homebrew CaK filter, Coronado 2x cemax barlow lens and FLIR GH3 IMX174 camera.  The Airylab Solar Seeing Monitor was used to get Firecapture to select only the sharpest subframes to be recorded.  I'm quite pleased with the result as is rare the seeing obliges like this for me.  It will be interesting to see how much of this plage is still visible in less than a months time when this region of our star makes a reappearance again.

CaK Full Disk 29th July

While there might appear to be not much happening in this full disk taken at Calcium wavelengths, it shows well the region of plage mid disk associated with final cycle 24 activity as a result of the active regions we had in this area in spring time earlier in the year.  The image was taken at 80mm f12.5 with the homebrew CaK filter and the FLIR GH3 ICX916M camera.

Sodium Full Disk 29th July

It occurred to me only recently, that as I was able to get a full disk using my Ha Quark, then the same would apply to my Na Quark.  This is a bit of a 'nothing shot' in so much as no features are visible, but it does serve a purpose that this wavelength of full disk is indeed possible, and certainly when cycle 25 kicks in should be alot more interesting.  Taken with the ED60/f6, Na Quark, Baader 0.7x solar telecompressor and the FLIR GH3 ICX916M camera.  This could also prove an interesting option for a Magnesium Quark in the future possibly?  Hmmm...

Filaments Mid Disk - 29th July

I took these shots of the filaments that are currently sat mid disk on the sun, these mark the position of the boundaries of coronal holes, that, also in turn mark the position of the boundaries of the magnetic fields associated with a region of the sun that spawned active region way back in the spring time.  This has survived several solar rotations now, with each rotation manifesting itself in slightly different form as it becomes weaker.  There is every chance that this region is the last major event of cycle 24 and so represents the 'terminator' event for this cycle.  While the magnetic field strength has dropped below the 1500 gauss needed to produce sunspots, there is sufficient magnetic fields to still produce filalments and also coronal holes.  It may well be that when the features we see above have finally totally (magnetically) diminished that this is when cycle 25 starts to kick in proper.  This may well have a few more rotations of activity left in it before it is gone, but will be interesting to track and hopefully observation backs up the theory.  The top image was taken with the 8" HaT and Daystar Quark with the 0.7x Baader Solar Telecompressor and the FLIR GH3 IMX174 camera, bottom image shows wider scale with the SM90 double stacked with the Daystar Quark and the FLIR GH3 ICX916M camera.  

Ha Full Disks 29th July

A couple of full disks from today; first up with the Coronado SM90 at prime focus, then followed by the double stack disk with the Lunt LS50 etalon and Daystar Quark.  Camera used in both instances was the FLIR GH3 ICX916M.  There isn't a huge amount of difference in details that would normally be expected in a single stack double stack comparison.  Maybe I didn't have the etalons tuned quite right?

Remnants of Active Regions in Ha - 25th July

This filament and turbulent plage is all that now remains of the equatorial active regions that marked the last major activity of cycle 24.  Taken with the Coronado SM90, 2x cemax barlow and the FLIR GH3 IMX174 camera.