The Dutch Observatory

Clear skies with poor seeing today.  A new active area has come around the Eastern limb in the Southern hemisphere which is visible in all three full disk images.  The region was named in SWPC’s midday report as AR2752. The area also seems to be reverse polarized. In addition to his area we see a very small reverse polarized area in the NW quadrant.  A few prominences in the  SE and NW sum up todays activity.  Full disk images today as well as close ups of the new region in CaK.

The Mercury Transit 2019.

Well, it did not start good, and did not end good, but in between I was able to capture some images which were compromised by lots of clouds.  The first image that resulted in making out that Mercury was there, was at 1338 UT.  However the blotched image shows what we had to deal with.  During the second half of the transit it was not much better and resulted in only one image towards the end of the transit.  The goal was to capture images in half an hour intervals. Here six images recapping the event for 2019, which is totally different than the 2016 event, during which I was able to capture composites of the ingress and egress.

Another very cold but clear morning with great seeing.  No spots on the Sun, but another reverse polarized area at N23 degrees and a longitude of 70 degrees.  In addition, we observed some prominences. Today marks the 600th spotless day since Solar Maximum.  Today full disk images and close ups in Ha and CaK of the reverse polarized area and two of the proms.

Another cold morning with clear skies and good seeing today, but no spots to observe.  However  a small reverse polarized area did become active for a while near the meridian at North 13.8 degrees.  I will add this to my overview later today. Today full disk images and a few closeups in Ha and 540nm.

Clear skies today, but a spotless Sun.  A few small proms were visible in the NE and the West and NW. Today full disk images as well as a close up of the filament in the North in Ha.

Cold again but clear skies! AR2750 has decayed and now only can be seen as a plage.  However the area in the western hemisphere was named  AR2751, but has decayed a lot today.  Today full disk images and close ups of the two regions in Ha and CaK.

Another cold day with clear skies.  The new spot from yesterday was named AR2750, but it had decayed quite a bit since yesterday, but it is still visible in the images.  The other area which has been observed as a plage since the 28th at a latitude of around 3 degrees North, now seems to have developed a spot and shows some flaring, but is polarized as a cycle 24 area.  So we will be looking if that will be named today.  Full disk images today and close ups of the mentioned areas.

Well the cold came.  Temperatures in the 30’s this morning, but with it came clear skies.  The current spotless streak will end now with 29 days, short of the 33 and 36 days from earlier this year, but well below three streaks during the previous minimum of 44,  51 and 52 days.  The area popped up at a longitude of 117.7 degrees and South 27.4 degrees and shows a polarization consistent with Cycle 25.  A few prominences were also visible at the Western limb.  Today full disk images as well as close ups in Ha and 540nm of the new area.

Wow, very foggy skies which burned off after 2 hours.  A spotless Sun today.  The small plage at the Eastern limb which just could be seen in yesterday’s CaK image shows today in Ha, CaK, and even as a faculae in the visible light close up.  Today is day 25 in the current streak.  Although this area is at another latitude than the previous two spots, the previous two rotations showed spots after respective 28 and 25 days.  Will be monitoring closely to see if we get another spot.  Today also closeups of the region mentioned, the prominences at the SW and NW limbs and the filaments as well.

It took a while for the clouds to disperse this morning, so I imaged through a number of holes in the clouds.  Another spotless day for the Sun for spotless day 588 since solar maximum, and day 24 for the current spotless streak.  A few faint filaments in the Northern hemisphere and a prom at the NW and SW limb.