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.