Sunday 20 September 2015

AR12415 Ha Closeup 13th September

I got a close up of this active region with the Meade AR5 and Daystar Quark with a Baader solar telecompressor giving a reducing factor of 0.75x with the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.  The Solar scintillation monitor was used to process the images from the best seeing conditions, with the data being shown below along with an image of the same active region when a (small!) B class flare was taking place.


Friday 18 September 2015

AR12414 Ha Closeup 13th September

I used the autorun feature in Firecapture, and then in conjunction with the data from the Airlyab Solar Scintillation Monitor and processed the files that corresponded with the moments of better seeing; the method worked as this shot taken with the 5" Meade AR5 and daystar quark shows.  Not bad for a shot when the sun had only just come above the rooftops and there were clouds and high level haze floating around at the time.  The Baader solar telecompressor was used to give a reduction factor of 0.75x and the camera used was the PGR Blackfly IMX249 GigE.

Wednesday 16 September 2015

AR12414 CaK Closeup 12th September

I don't have the Airylabs 'Solar Scintillation Monitor' acting as a trigger for the acquisition software yet, but it is still possible to use the data from it to see what time the best seeing was and then process the image files from this time.  The image above is a result of this process, and while not necessarily apparent when viewed at this small scale, there is a lot of fine detail visible; in particular the penumbral fibrils are starting to be resolved, which considering the image was taken using 60mm aperture is quite good.  The image was taken at 1900mm focal length with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.

Tuesday 15 September 2015

CaK Full Disk 12th September

I'm always impressed how large sunspots appear to be at Calcium wavelengths as can be seen in this image taken with the 40mm OTA at 650mm focal length with the PGR Blackfly IMX249 camera and homebrew CaK filter.

Ha Full Disk 12th September

All the activity on the sun seems to be in the southern hemisphere with the northern hemisphere essentially featureless.  This image was taken with the Coronado DS40 at 650mm focal length with the PGR Blackfly IMX249 camera.

Monday 14 September 2015

AR12414 in Ha with the Skywatcher ED80 - 12th September

I'm pleased with how this closeup taken with the ED80 and Quark has turned out of this active region as it gets nearer the limb.

AR12415 in Ha Closeup - 12th September

A closeup of this active region using the 127mm scope with the Quark and PGR Blackfly.

AR12414 in Ha - 12th September

A rough and ready (ie no flats applied) shot of this active region taken with the Meade AR5 (127mm) refractor using the Daystar Quark and PGR Blackfly IMX249 GigE camera.

Sunday 13 September 2015

Active Regions Closeup In CaK - 10th september

They aren't the largest of active regions, but they are still active never the less, and the seeing conditions were favourable when I took this image with the 60mm ED scope at 1900mm focal length with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Blackfly IMX249 GigE camera.  The large pixels of this camera work well at these longer focal lengths in CaK.

CaK Full Disk 10th September

The seeing conditions seemed to be just right when I was imaging in CaK wavelengths as can be seen in this image taken with the 40mm scope at 650mm focal length with the PGR Blackfly and homebrew CaK filter.  I was feeling optimistic so took the shot below with the same barlow combination on the 60mm f10 sope to give me a shade uder 1000mm focal length to take a shot of the suns mid riff to highlight the active regions slightly better:

Ha Full Disk 10th September

The sun is relatively quiet at the moment, but it still looks nice with smaller scale features as can be seen in this image taken with the Coronado DS40 and PGR Blackfly IMX249 camera.

Active Regions 10th september

Not sure i'm keen on how the processing came out with these, but it still shows the pair of active regions that were visible quite well, and then over the next couple of days developed rapidly. Taken with the Skywatcher ED80, Daystar Quark, Baader solar telecompressor and the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.

Departing Filaments 10th September

Taken with the ED80 and Daystar Quark, the sun was fairly quiet but there were quite a few filaments heading towards the limb.  

Closeups With the 127mm Scope 10th September

Conditions were pushing it to use the 127mm Meade AR5 with the Daystar Quark late in the afternoon, but it was nearly a month since I managed to do any proper imaging, so I decided to just give it a go.  The images are somewhat soft, but still nice to see the sun.