The Sun 29-7-08 - The Spire Lives On!

The tall prominence we named The Spire lives on it seems on the north-west limb. No surface activity and prom activity generally low.

The Sun 28-7-08 - Proms before the Thunderstorms

An increasingly hot and humid day today which broke into thunderstorms around 6pm. Some excellent proms on the limb with a huge spire dominating the lineup. I had half an hour to capture the proms in ever decreasing visibility around 17.57 BST. Had to hack a load of frames out of the DMK videos with Virtualdub as Registax just would not process the frames properly with bouncing turbulence and cloud passing through. Amazed I ended up with something resembling the main proms!

The Sun 27-7-08 Imaging in a mini heatwave

It was extremely hot this afternoon , up to 27 degrees and very humid with it. I got all the imaging done by 1.30pm as the equipment would have fried later on. Still no surface features but plenty of nice prominences distributed around the limb. Finally got the feathering to work in PSPX so the composite joins look a bit better now. The main prom group in the second image down was visibly spitting high velocity thin plasma streamers as I watched it live on the laptop screen.

The Sun 26-7-08 Fun with composite images!

Amazing clear blue-sky day and very hot. There was a very large tree-like prom on the west limb today and a hedgerow prom in the south. I decided to try and get both onto a surface/prom composite covering the southwestern third of the limb. Took 3 surfsce shots and mosaic'd them in Autostitch then added the proms. The whole process was very time consuming, at least two hours! I had problems getting PSPX to feather the selections properly but this was probably down to my technique. I did get some images I was really pleased with in the end and the results can be seen below.

The Sun 25-7-08 - Large prom !

Hot and humid, but also loads of cloud all day. I had the EQ6 mount set up from 5pm and was beginning to give up on seeing some clear sun tonight when the clouds suddenly parted at 8pm leaving a perfect blue sky. The only problem was that the sun was now very low and in danger of disappearing behind the hedge before I could get any images. I had to move the mount inside the conservatory, which is set higher than the garden patio, and that did the trick. Just managed to run off some videos of the main prom and the area where AR1000 was seen yesterday before cloud thin cloud rolled in and the sun dipped below the hedge.

The large prom today was a nice surprise, very active and constantly changing shape. The remains of AR1000 and the filament adjacent to it which could be seen yesterday were still just visible right on the very tip of the limb.

The Sun 24-7-08 - AR1000 still on view

Typically, after a fairly clear day, the cloud rolled in before I could get a good set of disk and prom videos. Proms were fairly small today and all scattered around the west limb. I thought AR1000 had faded yesterday but today it made a final comeback before vanishing over the west limb. There was a nice filament nearby which is just about to turn into a filaprom. AR1000 appeared to have two small AR filaments associated with it.

The Sun 22-6-08 - AR1000 has faded

Cloudy but very warm today. Not brilliant seeing with wispy thin high cloud masking the detail. I could not locate AR1000 easily, but I think what is left of it appears in the centre of the surface image below. The proms were nice today though with a nice curtain and an arch lifting off. Imaging completed between 18.20 - 19.00 BST.

The Sun 21-7-08 AR1000 filament activity

Imaging between 17.40 and 18.18 BST. The seeing was absolutely horrendous with the surface and limb turning to wobbly jelly on occasions and plenty of thin wispy cloud passing over. I thought video imaging would be a waste of time but how wrong can you be! The DMK's capabilities truly are remarkable at 60fps. Out of each run of 2000 frames I was getting only 30 or less to stack at 95% quality threshold. Even so the images were more than acceptable and the surface shots clearly showed detail in the active region. Prom shots were more tricky and only one of these turned out OK. AR1000 was very dynamic with tiny areas of occasional brightening and fast moving AR filaments. Some nice larger filaments nearby too.

The Sun 20-7-08 - More DMK camera trials

Plenty of time to set up the EQ6 mount and DMK this morning although imaging was tricky with a buffeting wind making the PST bounce a lot. Tried a few 2000 frame videos of the main prom and AR1000 plus some single shots of the many small filaments visible today.

I finally nailed the processing with Registax and PSPX and the images are coming out superb now with lots of detail in the active region and the proms.

The Sun 19-7-08 - AR1000 and Proms

First time imaging with the PST mounted on the EQ6 so that I can track the sun and keep objects centred in the video frames. Tracks very well on solar rate and the PST is a lot steadier in the wind than on the Alt/Az mount. Imaged at 60fps producing 2000 frames which gave file sizes of 587mb. The atmosphere was really turbulent and it took multiple videos to get one that stacked with a sharp final image in Registax 4. Prom on north west limb was the best. AR1000 is still visible and has clear spots and pores now. I could easily resolve the structure of the active region around the spots. I think the resolution of the PST holds the image quality back a little, but overall I am really pleased with the first results.

The Sun 18-7-08 Active Region 1000 appears

Active Region NOAA 1000 rounded the south eastern limb today and appears as a small area of plage brightening. No real sunspot yet and it looks as though it will be a small and potentially short-lived active region. Proms are fairly small today with one flame spike in the SE and a low arch in the NW.

Noctilucent Clouds 15-7-08 10.50 - 11.10pm

What an amazing and unexpected sight! I popped out 10.45pm to take the dog along the canal towpath and was greeted with the view below, looking west from the house, of these electric blue glowing Noctilucent clouds. I wasn't quite sure they were real at first, but they just hung there in the same position and got brighter while all the other cloud glided overhead and got dimmer so it was clear they were something out of the ordinary. Today they were confirmed as Noctilucents as other people on UKAI had photographed them too. A very pleasant first time viewing of these rare clouds for me on a lovely starlit night with the moon low in the south.

For more information on Noctilucent Clouds go to the Noctilucent Cloud Observers website here http://www.kersland.plus.com/

The Sun 15-7-08 16.29 UT

Windy but quite clear and sunny late afternoon so I thought I would get the DMK out for another session. The wind made imaging difficult as it was causing the sun shield on the PST to vibrate a lot which made the image jump around. Managed to get some surface and prom shots shots at up to 1000 frames. Focussing in these conditions is terrible! Anyway, not much to focus on except two spike proms on the NE limb and a filament in the SE. DMK mono, 2X Barlow. Disk is afocal.

The Sun 14-7-08 15.28 UT

Cloudy and breezy today with only very short breaks in the cloud for imaging. Proms are all very small today. On the east limb there are 3 small arches going over the limb. According to SOHO there was a large CME this morning and the image looked spectacular, I doubt there would have been much to see in Ha light though other than a small flare prom or erupting prom.

The Sun 13-7-08 7.33 UT

Cloudless blue sky here at 7.33 UT. An hour later cloud had rolled in from the west and the rest of the day looked like it would remain that way. The sun was not as active as yesterday but the main hedgerow prom from last night is still there in the south. Some small proms on the east limb including an arch prom. Nothing happening on the surface otherwise. In the afternoon the clouds parted and it cleared up nicely so I got my new DMK 21AU04.AS USB video camera out to trial it on the PST via the 2X Celestron Ultima Barlow lens.

For the price you cannot beat the DMK at the moment. The equivalent Skynyx 2-0 mono costs £500 compared to £264 for the DMK. The only real difference is the Skynyx has 12 bit mode also while the DMK is limited to 8 bit so the Skynyx can soak up a bit more information giving marginally better resolution in the same 640x480 image (at least I think thats how it works out). The IC Capture software with the DMK is a doddle to use and it is great fun being able to watch the sun in realtime video playback (quite addictive in fact) and capture single shots at the same time. I was shooting video at 60 fps today on an old 1.5 Ghz Toshiba Tecra M2 laptop with 1.25 Gigs RAM and there were no hiccups in the data capture at all. 1000 frames took about 17 secs and the file size was 293mb. Bear in mind this was my first day using the camera and I think I got the focus off a bit so the images can definately go sharper than the ones I have posted below, plus I would probably take a lot more frames to stack ie. 2000 plus. I am definately sold on the DMK USB cameras and would recommend them to anyone, just avoid the firewire ones unless you like a lot of hassle sorting out suitable power sources.

7.33 UT

Late afternoon........

Following two shots are "first light" for the DMK camera. First prominence image is turned negative then coloured from 1000 frames. Second surface filament image is a single shot with no other processing other than false colour...................