The Dutch Observatory

The sky was a bit more stable Sunday than Saturday allowing me to make some close-ups of AR1974, 76 and 80 in visible light using the Baader Continuum filter.  (Thanks Stephen for letting me borrow this).  The Ha close-ups were very weak and I’ve not included them.

The storm of the decade passed and the ice and snow has melted at the Dutch Observatory in Oxford. The sky is very unstable so today only a full disk image. I almost completely missed AR1974 because of the weather.  It has been very active today despite its size of  460 millionth, with 12 C-Class flares and 8 M-class flares.

AR1967 keeps growing and today it has  increased to 1190 millionth.  It soon will be as big as AR1944 was   Today the skies were a lot more stable with OK seeing so here a full disk image with close-ups of AR1967 in H-alpha and White/Green light.

Clear Skies on the 30th, but not very stable so made only H-alpha images of the full disk and AR1967.  Here the full disk images and AR1967 has grown from 580 to 980 millionth over night.  Very respectable again!!!

Had a little time and the sky looked stable so I tried a few white light images.  Here close ups with the Stellarvue SVC80, 3.8u Baader solar and green filter of AR1959 and 60, as well as AR1967 which is just coming around the eastern limb which is the remnant of AR1944.  Let’s see if it continues as the old 1944 as it turns further our side.

This session was on the 24th.  Time for another H-alpha capture.  Seeing was not good enough for close-up visible light imaging  The sunspot group 1959 and 60 are gaining size but flare activity stayed low.

A clear sky again today but the seeing was not great.  Today a full disk image and a close up of the sunspot groups which are a part of active regions 1955, 57 ,58, 59 and 60.  A nice sun today, but too unstable to drill down in white light.

Spend some time with Marie Lott imaging the Sun last Friday using different filters.  However the seeing was terrible, so it does not look like our effort paid off. All captured images seem to be washed out.  Except for the full disk image, which was taken the usually way with the SolarMax40 and a Meade 140, 2x barlow.  Today we have AR1948, 49, 50, 51, 52,  53, 54, and 55.

A clear Sky today but seeing was not good.  Today a full disk image with AR1948, 49, 50, 52, 53 and 54 with the largest region (1949) being 150 millionth. Flare activity has been low yesterday and today so far, with few flare originating from a not yet named area.  Also a close-up of 1949.

Variable clouds today but found a short break in the cloud coverage.  Seeing was better than I expected, but not good enough for hi-res close ups.  Today a whole disk image and a close up of AR1949.  It is noteworthy to mention that a week ago the largest active region, 1944 was 10 times the size of the largest area, 1949 today, 1560 vs. 150 millionth.  In addition it looks like the majority of the activity has shifted to the western hemisphere.