The sun is still very active. We have a thunderstorm thuis morning but the sky cleared later in the afternoon, it's very windy, however.
1410 and 1411 (UT+1), at prime focus:
And then I insert a 2x barlows for close up:
1416 (UT+1)
1414 (UT+1)
1413 (UT+1)
Sorry about the reversed order.
I also pulled out my 8" SCT for a couple of white light shots, I guess I will want to add a color filter, say red, to reduce the disturbance from seeing but I forgot.
1433 and 1434 (UT+1)
Very active sun, glad that I did some imaging.
1136 (UT+1), taken with a reducer:
The Scottish summer is nearly non-existent this year. We finally got some sunshine and I pulled out my gear to take a few shots.
1319 + 1320 mosaic of two frames to show the prominences, very active and lovely.
And then close up with 2x barlows, first up is 1313 + 1314 mosaic of two frames:
And then another 2x single shot, 1316:
Enjoy a short session.
I used a tripod instead of the short pier I setup for deep sky inaging, far more comfort and still good enough for solar imaging. I have some concept of the pole in my backyard.
Going back to H-alpha, just before a family BBQ.
Windy day, suboptimal seeeing I would say 4/10, transparency nice at 8/10.
Trying the 8" SCT white light again, this time with a green filter, I hope it could help a bit on combating seeing?
1541 (UT), using 50% of frames:
I didn't try AB comparison with or without the green filter. Still no granulations.
This is an naked eye visible event here in Scotland, and maybe actually from the whole UK.
I planned a wee trip to the Dechmond Law which is the highest point in the small town of Livingston West Lothian.
My daughter was joining the birthday party of her friend, and so we waited on top of this small hill, the full show came after her party.
Still following the huge active region but this time in white light, the cloud is still following me.
And then I scanned around to find this "smaller" sunspot:
Taken with my Meade 8" SCT at prime focus, ASI 462mm, Baader.
AR3664 and AR3668 are probably one of the biggest active regions that I have ever taken, glad to have a few minutes of gaps among the cloud.
Ranger with 1.6x barlows, 1433-1441 (UIT)
Several big prominences group as well:
Time to experiment with my 8" mighty SCT!
First of all, the semi-permanent pier is fantastic. Much faster setup, no need to do any alignment, rock solid for imaging, I'm loving it!
Mounted and balanced on DEC, goto the Sun with 2000mm of focal length from zero position. It was very close, I could centre the sun without problem. Sync'ed the mount and then it tracked for more than half an hour, still dead centre.
No problem with manual focusing, rock solid. The heavy wooden board below was not an issue at all, maybe it helps on stabilising any vibration too.
Seeing less than desirable with cloud running really fast, so just a test shot.
The sun is really busy these days, with loads of sunspots here and there. This group was close to the centre. During moments of good seeing, the visual view is simply stunning with loads of detail inside that bigger sunspot.
I'm going to use this rig for planet imaging at night, when condition allows.
This is not exactly astronomical, but then it's still a result of extra-terrestial stream of high energy particles. This is probably the first time I captured some but it's not visible in the light polluted front yard.
It's only taken handheld from my home with a mobile phone.
Very windy, again on the new pier. Faster setup time, and the pier is very stable!
Taken with the 1.6x Baader barlows, poorly mosaic of four frames from 1632 to 1637 (UT+1), cloud moving quickly making mosaic very difficult, more like testing the setup.
Prominence only, merged by two frames, not stitched perfectly so it was made dimmer to hide the artifacts, 0948 and 0949 (UT+1)
Next up is the close up of the active regions
0954 (UT+1)
0955 (UT+1)
All taken with ASI 462mm with the Baader 1.6x Q barlows and here is my new setup:
The pier is fixed on the floor, the mount is removable and stored inside the house.
