The Sun 30-4-08

Just totalled up the months observations and I managed to get a record on 24 days in April which is highly unusual! Normally I am lucky if a get to see some sun on 10 days of the month. It must be the fact that daylight hours have extended so I can do observations before and after work. In the dark days of last winter I recall I struggled to observe on more than 4 days in a month when the sun was consistently low in the sky and shrouded in grey murk.

Today there was a really fine quiescent curtain/hedge prom on the south west limb which was starting to look more active and change shape in the late afternoon. Elsewhere most of the proms are on the west limb again. The main filament group is disappearing over the south west limb. The plage region in the west is looking much quieter today with a single slender arcing filament bisecting the plage.

The Sun 29-4-08

Took ages to get the basic sketch record completed today through holes in the cloud. Not much surface detail in the photos due to a thin milky cloud layer reducing the seeing although the proms show up well. The east limb is still quiet while a parade of small arch proms can be seen arcing over the west limb. The main filament group is nearing the south west limb while the plage region in the north west quadrant remains active.

The Sun 28-4-08

Today seemed like deja vu with cloud and rain in the morning and a clear sunny afternoon. The same extended to the sun where the east limb was very quiet again and only small quiescent proms generally visible in the north south and west. On the surface the filament group seen yesterday was less prominent and was initially split into one long and two short lengths. These then merged into two main filaments that almost joined each other in the south west quadrant. The main active area had three small curved plage spots and very thin short filaments following the outer edges of the plage.

The Sun 27-4-08

Awful grey morning with showers and wind then at 5pm it suddenly cleared in the west and I snatched a look. I was pleased to see a large arch prom on the south limb, some filaments and an active region in the north west quadrant.

The Sun 24-4-08

Two long filaments have been active and very visible on the sun the last two days. Region 991 came and went without developing much in the space of a day while 992 lingers but is now fading. The afocal image below captures the main two filaments, two areas of brighter plage and small prominences in the north and west.

New solar cycle 24 Active Region forming on the sun

The first active region of solar cycle 24 was observed on January 4th 2008. This new active region in the north displays the characteristic reversed polarity. The bright region has not coalesced into a sunspot yet and may fade without properly forming, we will have to wait and see! Very little activity was otherwise observed today, there are some small prominences in the north with the larger group of proms lying quite close to the new active region.

Above taken 14.50 UT

Above taken 12.31 UT

The Moon and the Pleiades 8-4-08

The Moon passed close to the Pleiades star cluster tonight in a conjunction. I caught it quite late due to cloud and just had time for a quick 2 second photo with the Canon S3 IS at ISO 80. Even at 2 seconds the stars are trailing!

Crescent Moon 8-4-08

Taken on the Canon S3 IS at 400mm 5 secs ISO 80

Thin Crescent Moon in the West

It was a new moon yesterday and the crescent was super-thin. I managed to get a photo of the crescent tonight at 7.30pm and it looks quite atmospheric hovering above the rain clouds in the west with a slight "earthshine" effect.

The Sun Today 16.50 UT

Not a lot of activity today after the excitement of the past week, just a few small proms.

Huge connecting arch between proms 6-4-08 9.50UT

Fighting against a high milky cloud layer this morning after heavy snowfall here in Wales. The cloud layer is giving me some awful colour casts to process out of the images. At 9.50 UT there was a huge arch of plasma linking the two main proms on the south west limb. It appears to be slowly breaking up now but was very impressive in the 9mm eyepiece. The first image below is unprocessed to show the faint linking arch (arrowed) - as soon as I run Curves in CS2 this arch vanishes. The image at the bottom is processed to bring out the detail in the main proms, but you can still make a bit of the linking arch out above them.

Later on at 12.08UT I experimented with Gill's Canon Powershot A80 to see if I could get a sharper full disk image. At 1/15 - 1/20 sec at ISO 50 on full auto it was taking some great shots after I had got used to the menus. Here is one of the best............

The "ghost" prominence develops into something larger

The "ghost" prom seen yesterday on the south limb has developed into a taller mass of gas plasma with three tall vertical jets to the east. Elsewhere on the southern and western limbs there is plenty of other prominence activity today. These were taken around 15.40 UT through the 25mm wide (disk shot) and 9mm (close up) eyepieces.

Ghost-like prominence on the sun

I had a bunch of really nice full disk shots today which included some very nice proms distributed all around the suns disk. When it came to downloading them only three would show up! All the rest were corrupted and the compactflash disk is obviously trashed - first time that has happened to me in 8 years of using digital cameras. Only one shot came out, but it shows an extraordinary prom on the south limb (at the top) which looks just like a ghost with outstretched arms - spooky!

The Sun Today 3-4-08

A really nice warm Spring day today. Active regions 988 and 989 are disappearing over the west limb and there are a number of small filaments visible that are associated with these old active regions. Two large prominences are visible on the south and west limbs.

The Sun Today 16.31 UT - Big Prominence

Terrible seeing and high wind early this evening meant I had no chance of capturing surface detail so I concentrated on the proms and managed two images of the large prom on the SW limb before the sun dipped over the horizon. Coolpix 4500, afocal, PST, 24mm and 9mm EP's.