Mercury Transit - 11th November

Monday was the transit of Mercury over the face of the sun, sadly I was at work at the time and observing it really wasn't an option unfortunately.  Fortunately these days there are so many live sources of our star online that at various points I was able to get a virtual view of the transit.  Here is the AIA1700 image from the Solar Dynamics Observatory I grabbed that shows Mercury as the small black disk nearly dead centre on the sun.  The next doesn't occur until 2032, maybe I will be fortunate enough to have retired by then and will be able to observe it.

Iceland Sunrise - 27th October

The light at sunrise was simply amazing this morning here in Iceland!  Twilight lasts for 2 hours at this latitude this time of the year, and so it was a pleasure to watch the changing hues over time!

Iceland Sunset Aurora - 26th October

Following 2 days of auroral storms, the solar wind was still flowing in excess of 600km/s, which is pretty fast.  As a result as soon as it started to go dark there were aurora visible here in Iceland.  This animation spans 30 minutes from sunset and was taken with a Canon 350D, Sigma 10mm f4 lens, 20s exposure at iso 800.  The aurora were visible for the whole of the night and were lovely to see again!

CaK Full Disk 19th October

The seeing conditions weren't great when I imaged my full disk in Ha, but the passing of a weather front meant the air was very transparent and so I had some hope for calcium imaging.  I used the ED80 stopped down to 60mm along with the homebrew CaK filter.  Looking at the enlarged image it is possible to see the spicule ring around the edge of the sun, along with faint prominences.  Looking at the centre of the disk it is possible to see the inverse granulation that characterises the view in Calcium light.

Ha Full Disk 19th October

Poor weather has meant it's seemed like an age since I was able to do any solar observing, Saturday arrived and despite the sun being blank I decided to get the scopes out and observe.  The northern polar regions were the most interesting with a hedgerow like filament and bright points corresponding to polar faculae.  Taken with a Lunt50 etalon on the ED60 that was double stacked with a Daystar Quark.

45 Minutes in the life of a Quiescent Prominence - 8th September

Lovely clear blue skies this morning, only a couple of degrees above zero at dawn, won't be long till we have a frost I think... The sun was completely blank, nothing to see apart from the glorious proms. So, with deep blue skies and no sign of cloud imminent I decided to go for an animation with the Coronado SM90ii, 2x Cemax barlow and the GH3 IMX174 camera. The movement is subtle, but there is a lot going on when you look closely...

Promtastic Sunday - 8th September

The suns disk is blank, really blank!  not much at all is happening, but today all the action was around the limb in the form of prominences.  There were lovely sets on both limbs in the northern hemisphere.  This image has an inverted disk with a limb composite, taken with the Coronado SM90ii and the PGR Grasshopper camera.