The Sun 29-9-08 - Two Large Proms

Woke up to unexpected clear blue skies with no cloud today which makes up for missing all the fun with that big prom yesterday. The same two proms were still visible in the SE and NW and seem to be very quiescent now with minor changes in structure over a number of hours. No surface activity visible.

The Sun 27-9-08 - Two fine proms

Quiet on the surface today, but there are still two fine proms in the north and south. The prom to the south (upper left on disk shot below) developed markedly by the end of the day and grew in size. During the 28th this one enlarged even more, erupted and then reconnected to the surface with quite a few superb images and sketches of it appearing on the Cloudy Nights forum, sadly I missed the whole show as we were clouded out the whole day.

The Sun 26-9-08 - Nice proms plus last of AR11002

After a foggy morning the murk lifted to reveal a cloudless sky this afternoon. The small active area that produced the eruptive event this morning could clearly be seen in the east. AR11002 is right on the west limb now and could hardly be seen in Ha, but was quite clear in CaK light. The proms in the north west formed a fine parade of hedgerows, small arches and flames. Normally I wouldn't recommend using a 5X powermate on the PST as the results are usually pretty ugly, but I had another go today and the proms, while bloated, are not too bad considering the high magnification (see last two images below) - this is pretty much at the limit of what the PST can resolve.

The Sun 24-9-08 - AR11002 Fades

Managed to get some images between 14.50 and 17.06 BST today after an alert on the CN solar forum that a big prom had been seen. Seeing was poor despite occasional patches of clear blue sky with much turbulence crossing in front of the sun which greatly reduced the resolution of fine features in the proms and AR. AR11002 is fading fast now and only tiny pores were visible today in CaK compared to the obvious spot seen yesterday. The large prom was a multiple arched affair.

The Sun 23-9-08 - A New sunspot AR11002

Just arrived back from a short holiday in Cornwall to find that a new active region has rounded the east limb and is putting on a fine display. This one is a solar cycle 24 region too! Cleaning the DMK 41 with 100% cotton buds seems to have removed the persistent dust, but the DMK21 still has dust motes which will need more work to shift. Great to be able to see something other than background noise in the PST CaK today and it stood up well to high magnification of the spot group. Some fine arch proms on the north limb and smaller stuff in the south. The active region is still growing at the moment so this one should be interesting over the next few days.

The Sun 18-9-08 - Proms and quiet disk

A glorious sunny day today for a change. Only two main proms in the north and no surface activity.

The Sun 13-9-08 - Various views of a quiet disk

Amazing blue-sky blazing sun sort of a day for the most part although it did cloud up from the south by 4pm. Although visually clear the atmosphere had other ideas and was causing the familiar jelly dance on the suns surface, so prominence images in particular were not processing out as sharp as they could.

The CaK image also proved tricky to process as the surface is easy to burn out if the gain is set too high and again after stacking if too much wavelet processing is applied.

It was a quiet sun again today with the largest prom in the west and no real surface interest to view.

The Sun 12-9-08 - First Light for the PST CaK !

Well the weather forecast was supremely optimistic again today with sun symbols all over the place at the Met Office. Up to 9am it was indeed clear and sunny, but the seeing was abysmal so I decided to wait and see if it improved. Of course it just went downhill from there with complete cloud cover till 4.30pm. A brief hole in the cloud between 4.30-5.30pm allowed me to setup the mount and try out the CaK for the first time. Getting the exposure just right is quite tricky in CaK light! I needed more gain than is usual for Ha, but when you get it right the detail just pops out on the screen. Lots of tiny bright plage spots and a much grainier surface than in Ha which resembles the white light views of the granular surface. Not much to see today of course but it will be great fun to image with when the activity levels rise. The quality of the image is superb, no astigmatism whatsoever. I took 1700 frames and had 243 to stack after aligning at a 90% quality threshold.

Also did a Ha disk. Fairly small proms around ths disk and no sign of the spots making up AR1001 which apparently appeared yesterday.

10-9-08 - A PST CaK joins my solar imaging setup

Just bought this used PST CaK from Ben Ritchie. It is a replacement unit for his first PST CaK which was very astigmatic and had to be returned. This one has perfect focus judging by the images Ben has posted on the CN Solar forum and on his own website. I was hoping to be able to give a first light report on its imaging potential today, but the cloud never parted long enough to set everything up.

The CaK scopes allow imaging of a layer of the chromosphere which is cooler and lower than the view via a Ha filter. The Calcium K wavelength is at 393.4 nanometres and allows views of super granulation cells. Emerging flux regions can sometimes be seen forming in this layer before they become visible in Ha light and active region detail can persist in the Calcium view long after detail has been lost in Ha.

The Sun 9-9-08 - Two Proms

Got back home after work to find to find an unexpected blue patch in the sky - and some sun! And so the mad rush to get the EQ6 mount out and the laptop fired up plus camera connected ensued. I just had enough time to capture the two main proms before the sun dipped below the hedge at the back of the garden. Atmospheric conditions due to the low altitude sun were pretty awful and thin cloud kept passing too. Managed two 2000 frame runs though so I was more than happy. After processing the proms are not as sharp as I would have liked, but given the awful weather lately I am thankful for any brief views that are available.

The Sun 6-9-08 - Nice Arch Proms

I did not really expect to be seeing any sun today as the forecast was for cloud and heavy showers. Then just before 1pm I saw a distant patch of blue sky heading our way. After what must have been the fastest setup ever I managed to capture four whole disk surface and prom videos with the DMK41AU02.AS between 12.53 and 12.59 BST before the sun was blanked out again for the rest of the day - phew that was close! A nice array of fine arch prominences was on display all around the limb and some faint filaments - well worth the effort!

Sunnymeade Astro appears on the Imaging Source Blog

It was a pleasant surprise to find that Jonathan Maron of IS had picked up my 'First Light' report on the DMK 41AU02.AS from 23/8/08 and included it on the Imaging Source Blog along with the images http://www.astronomycamerasblog.com/ - thanks for the kind comments Jonathan!

The Sun 4-9-08 - Huge Proms on the East Limb!

After an unpromising start with thick grey cloud (how I hate nimbostratus clouds) and persistent rain the day slowly brightened and then by 2.30pm the clouds were breaking up revealing some blue sky and the hope of a decent imaging session. I slid the DMK 41AU02.AS in the PST focusser, chose the configuration for whole disk prom shots, slowly turned the focus knob to get focus and WOWZA !!!! There were two huge proms on the east limb staring back at me on the laptop! These are the largest proms I have seen for a few months by far. A very bright curving spike on the right leans in toward a much fainter, but delicately braided, hedgerow prominence on the left. The hedgerow prom was quite dynamic with significant changes in shape every 5 minutes or so while the spike prom just blazed away. After taking the whole disk shots I switched to the DMK21AU04.AS along with a Celestron 2x Barlow and AE 1.6x magni-max lens to get the detail on the proms. The latter combination of lenses gives a lovely scale to the prominences and just the right amount of magnification without causing bloating in the fine detail. A nice arch prom in the west and some small filaments rounded off a very satisfying imaging session.