Posts tagged 'Sunspots'

Observing Report 2nd April 2013 Part 2 (Bigger Sunspots)

Posted by on April 5th 2013 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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As promised, sunspots with added bigness.

AR1711 is huge (run your mouse over the pic to see a pasted-in Earth for comparison), in the full-size version you can even see some vague detail down inside the dark region (the umbra):

Active Region 1714 (02/04/2013).
DMK mono camera with 2.25x Barlow on C80ED-R, Baader Solar Film filter.

Active Region 1704 (02/04/2013).
DMK mono camera with 2.25x Barlow on C80ED-R, Baader Solar Film filter.

Active Region 1711 (02/04/2013).
DMK mono camera with 2.25x Barlow on C80ED-R, Baader Solar Film filter.

Observing Report 2nd April 2013 Part 1 (Sunspots)

Posted by on April 3rd 2013 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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See? This is what happens when you decide to keep your winter beard - three consecutive days of almost uninterrupted dawn-to-dusk sunshine.

🙄

Here's a stitched pic from yesterday morning, mouseover for labels, click it to see the bigger version:

Active Regions 1704, 1707, 1708, 1710, 1711, 1713 & 1714 (02/04/2013).
DMK mono camera @ prime focus on C80ED-R, Baader Solar Film filter.

I grabbed some more shots of the main sunspot groups at a higher magnification, it'll take me a while to process the stuff so I'll put the results in a "Part 2" post as and when.

Observing Report 13th January 2013 (Big sunspot group)

Posted by on January 13th 2013 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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This was the first observing session of the year, primarily because it's been the first time we've had clear skies. Prominent in the image is Active Region 1654. This is a huge group of sunspots, currently about 180,000 km from end to end - that's about 14 Earth-diameters, or, in proper units, about 657 x the length of Wales.

Mouseover the image to see how tiny the Earth would look next to these things, and click the image to see it thrice bigger:

 

Active Region 1654 (13/01/2013)

3000 stacked frames, DMK mono CCD camera at prime focus on the C80ED-R, Baader Planetarium AstroSolar™ Safety Film (ND 3.8) with #58 Green and IR-cut filters

Observing Report 26th July 2012 (Sunspots)

Posted by on July 27th 2012 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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Managed to get a few sunspot shots during a short break from trimming the hedges yesterday.

I used a less-dense solar filter (ND 3.8 as opposed to the ND 5.0 that I've used before) which lets through more light allowing much shorter exposures in order to "freeze" the seeing. I also had a play with various magnifications - 1x (prime focus), 2x (Powermate) and 4x (Powermate + Barlow).

All 50/4000 stacked frames, DMK mono CCD camera on the C80ED-R, Baader Planetarium AstroSolar™ Safety Film (ND 3.8) with #58 Green and IR-cut filters.

There's a reference image at the end in case you're wondering what's where:

Active Regions 1528, 1529, 1530 & 1532 (26/07/2012).
1x (prime focus).

Active Regions 1529, 1530 & 1532 (26/07/2012).
2x (Powermate).

Active Region 1532 (26/07/2012).
4x (Powermate + Barlow).

Active Region 1530 (26/07/2012).
4x (Powermate + Barlow).

Active Region 1529 (26/07/2012).
4x (Powermate + Barlow).

Active Region 1528 (26/07/2012).
4x (Powermate + Barlow).

Active Region 1531 (26/07/2012).
4x (Powermate + Barlow).

Active Region 1526 (26/07/2012).
4x (Powermate + Barlow).

Reference image from SOHO.

Observing Report 12th July 2012 (Sunspots)

Posted by on July 14th 2012 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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Thursday morning was surprisingly clear and sunny - an odd period sandwiched between countless hours of incessant rain. I managed about half an hour of solar observing before it all went claggy. The seeing wasn't that good but I managed to get fair views of Active Region 1520 and its satellites. Apologies now for the poor-quality images, I might have another bash at the stacking to see if I can get the noise levels down a bit without losing any detail:

Active Regions 1519 - 1521 (12/07/2012).
50/6000 stacked frames.
DMK mono CCD camera with 2x Powermate on the C80ED-R.
Baader Planetarium AstroSolar™ Safety Film (ND 5.0) with #58 Green and IR-cut filters.

The largest spots in AR1520 are even bigger than those in AR1504 which I imaged last month!

Observing Report 19th June 2012 (Sunspots)

Posted by on June 20th 2012 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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Yesterday the clouds parted for longer than expected so I nipped out to get some pics of the group of active regions that are about to go out of sight behind the Sun's limb. The seeing was surprisingly good which allowed a fair bit of detail to be captured:

Active Regions 1504 - 1507 (19/06/2012).
300/3000 stacked frames.
DMK mono CCD camera on the C80ED-R.
Baader Planetarium AstroSolar™ Safety Film (ND 5.0) and #58 Green filter.

To give you some idea of the size of these things, the dark core of that largest sunspot in the AR1504 group is twice as big as our planet.
It's making me feel quite insignificant.
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