The Dutch Observatory

Clear Skies except for the Ha closeup for which a small cloud had to show up.  The spotless streak has ended today as the small plage just North of the equator continued to develop into a spot which was named this morning as AR2745.  This is a Cycle 24 polarized area.  However we saw a few very small reverse polarized areas, one at N23.6 and another at S30.4.   The streak ended just before we reached 500 spotless days since Solar max.  So we’re satisfied with 499 spotless days so far. In addition we observed a few proms and the filaments in the Northern hemisphere.  Today full disk images and a close up of AR2745 in Ha.

A few holes between the clouds.  Enough for full disk images of today’s Sun.  The Sun is spotless but we see again a few filaments in the NE region and the prom on the NE limb imaged by Howard yesterday is still there.

A spotless Sun today with a small faint filament near the SE limb.  Other than that the Sun is quiet. Full disk images today in the three wavelengths with the Ha image captured through some thin clouds.

I spent some time with my family from Europe as they came to visit us, so I only had time to capture some images, but not to process them.  I found the time now to do that.  So here images of two days earlier this week. A blank Sun with the exception of on the 15th when there was a faint and small filament visible near the Southern limb.

Had to capture through thin clouds this morning.  A number of very small and short lived areas in the Southern hemisphere showed up following the remnant of AR2744.  Other than that the Sun was spotless and very quiet.

A spotless day and for the most clear skies.  Nothing to see on the Sun today, except for the plage of AR2744 left in CaK and a faint Western prom.

Seeing was compromised a little by thin high clouds.  AR2744 is still visible in Ha and CaK but it is hard to make I out in visible light.  It seems to have decayed a lot.  Today full disk images and close ups of the active region as well as the Western filaments.

Today I made some comparative images using the ZWO ASI174MM and ASI120MM-S cameras.  The main difference between the two cameras is the chip size and the pixel size.  I made images of two different targets, AR2744 and the filaments near the Western limb in different configurations using my SolarMax 40 Ha scope, while processed the same in Photoshop.  The first two show closeups of the targets using the ASI174MM in combination with a 3x barlow.  The next two show the ASI120MM-S in direct focus.  All the previous images did not show signs of Newton rings.

The following images were stacked using a separate dark frame each for the two sets in AS2.  The next two images show the ASI120MM-S with a 2x barlow cell of a Meade series 140 barlow screwed directly onto the nose piece of the camera giving approx. 1.6 magnification.  I notice faint very tight Newton rings especially in the dark area to the right of the Sun.  This has been processed out in Photoshop.  The last set is taken with the ASI120MM-S with a 2x Celestron barlow and shows heavy banding.  It should be noted that all images with the ASI120MM-S were taken with a tilter installed at maximum tilt.  The ASI174MM was not tilted.

Clear skies with the exception of a thin cloud band that covered the Sun and did not want to move away.  However I was able to capture these images with bad seeing.  We do have a spot and the current spotless streak comes to an end.  It was named this morning as AR2744.  The exciting part of this is that its polarization is reversed from the C-24 areas.  In addition, its latitude is at 27.66 degrees South and a longitude of 209.5 degrees, so it probably will qualify as a C-25 spot.  Following AR2620 in December 2016, this would be the 2nd reversed polarized region that was named.  Full disk images today with close ups of the area as well as the Western Filaments.

Clear skies with great seeing.  Another spotless day for spotless day 483 since Solar max.  A faint prominence at the NW limb and a few small filaments.  Full disk images today and a close up of the filaments with the ASI174 and ASI120.