Posts tagged 'Sun'

Observing Report 29th August 2018 (I see a little silhouetto of an ISS…)

Posted by on August 29th 2018 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics

I've been waiting to have a pop at this for quite some time - solar transits of the International Space Station (ISS) visible from my obsy are as rare as rocking-horse shit.

For the past two days the weather had been forecast to be cloudy until two hours after the transit but I got set up regardless, hoping for a gap in the clouds.

It didn't exactly clear, but it thinned sufficiently at just the right time for me to give it a shot.

Visibility was poor due to the thin cloud, and the camera was dropping frames for the first time ever, but at least I caught some footage. Viewed from here the full transit lasted about one second (the ISS moves at about about 17,500 miles per hour) and my FOV covered about two thirds of the transit path, I was shooting at 30fps so in theory I should have captured about 20 useful frames.

Here's a composite pic of all of the frames featuring the ISS, run your cursor over it to see a sharpened version:

 

ISS Solar Transit (~ 09:41 UTC, 29/08/2018).
DMK mono camera on C80ED-R, Baader Solar Film filter.

 

I'm chuffed with that for a first attempt.

Observing Report 17th April 2016 (Unexpected sunspots)

Posted by on May 1st 2016 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
Tags: ,

It's hard to believe that it's been over a year since I posted anything astronomy-related.

I'm not yet ready for full nights up in the obsy, but unexpectedly I was allowed out to play during the day.

Here are a couple of sunspot pics and a stitched image from a session a couple of weeks ago. Not my best work, but it was fun trying to remember which wires connect what to what, and which software settings are best for the conditions and the data.

Active Region 2529 (17/04/2016).
DMK mono camera with 2.25x Barlow on C80ED-R, Baader Solar Film filter.

 

Active Region 2532 (17/04/2016).
DMK mono camera with 2.25x Barlow on C80ED-R, Baader Solar Film filter.

 

Sun (17/04/2016).
Six stitched images from the DMK mono camera on C80ED-R, Baader Solar Film filter.

Observing Report 19th May 2013 (Sunday Sun)

Posted by on May 20th 2013 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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The old spots have moved around a bit, there's not much new stuff following on behind.

No close-ups this time  🙁

Sun (19/05/2013).
Six stitched images from the DMK mono camera on the C80ED-R, Baader Solar Film filter.

What SOHO (the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) saw.