The Dutch Observatory

The second day of our outreach event for HTE I had a little more time at home and was able to put in a imaging session before leaving.  The active region 1401 and 02, which showed a brilliant display of fireworks on Chinese New Year, is quickly approaching the Western limb, while the NE limb is showing a tall prominence.

Tuesday we did the first of a two day solar event at Hightower Trail Elementary in Conyers. Great students and teachers! The students saw the sun, the active region which produced the largest CME impact since 2003 and learned about the satellites that help us study the sun.  Back on Wednesday for the second day and Friday for the 8th Space Camp at Hightower.

Last summer, Romaine and I went back to upstate New York to visit relatives and friends.  It allowed me to reconnect with some old friends, Carol and Chuck Higgins, who are members of the Mohawk Valley Astronomical Society and I did attend one of their meetings while I was there.  See my blog for this by clicking here.  Earlier this week I rreceive an email from Chuck in which he attached an image that he and Carol made on 1/19/2012 of an ISS – Sun transit.  I like this image because it is very nice and there are not so many transit images that show transits in the Calcium-K emission line.  In the winter with the low sun, these transits usually happen at larger distances, so I think they did a fantstic job with this.  Congrats Chuck and Carol!!!  Click the image for the larger version.

Image by Chuck and Carol Higgins.

Broken clouds today.  Active Regions 1401, 02 and 05 are crackling with activity.  1402 showed a great flare, but the clouds did not allow me to image an animation.  I wonder if we get to see some fireworks here.  Today’s image a full disk image of the sun as well as a closeup of the AR1401,02 and 05 group.

When I got up at 6 this morning, Spaceweather was already advertizing the large prom at the NW limb so I could not wait to take a look.  But when the sun cleared the walls at 10:30 I did not see anything  except 3 small proms.  It turns out it left the sun around 8 our time. I wonder if anyone was able to image it.   The group AR1401, 02 and 05 is developing in a nice and interesting group worth keeping an eye on.  Today a full disk image and close up of this trio.

Another day with great seeing.  The giant prominence from yesterday afternoon is gone and a new one seems to be building in the area of AR1399, of which I have a closeup today.  1401 and 1402 are just coming around the Western limb and are pretty active.  Could make a nice view this week.  Today also a Calcium-K image and an inverted version, made with the Scope I received with the Jon Wood Award from the Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project.

The color scheme I tried yesterday did not work out as I liked.  Too bright and hard to see details, so I am back to my old scheme for the moment.  We had an outreach event today and did not have much time to image.  Had to attend to the visitors.  Made one full disk image of the sun, but I wish I had more time.  A beautiful prominence at the South Western limb.  Two hours later SDO showed a great display, but I am happy I have what I got.  Today a full disk image with a new sunspot showing up 1398 and a large prom.

My hopes for today were a nice arching prominence or CME.  But the sun decided different.  Still AR1391,93,and 95 in the Northern hemisphere.  We had very strong winds and freezing temperatures at the time of my imaging, which made it too unstable to image a closeup prominence or filament.  I have a question today.  I processed the image in two color schemes.  The orange one comes closer to the A1A images from SDO, but I don’t know if I like it. It becomes much harder to see detail I believe.  Let me know what you think.

Cloudy during the night and cloudy now, but for a short while, some breaks in the clouds, just enough to let me image the sun for today.  The activity in the Southern hemisphere from last week is gone.  We have a few active regions in the northern half.  The nice big prominence at the SE rim from yesterday as shown by SDO went before last night, but the nice “caterpillar” rolling prominence reported by Kevin Ty at the Eastern limb is still there, with a faint but nice looping prom to the north of it.  Today a full sun image, and a closeup of the prominence at the eastern limb.

Today the last day before the clouds roll in again and very stable clear skies.  AR1386 has rotated to the backside and 1391 is rotating nice in view with some small but bright flares to make it interesting  The prom at the Eastern limb is still there but now is seen as an  arching area a little lighter than the surface detail just of the limb in the direction of AR1391.  On the SE limb a pretty high but faint prominance (you need to look pretty close).  Today the full sun with a closeup of AR1391.