The Dutch Observatory

I’ve been playing a little with the color scheme I use in my Ha close up images.  I kind of like this vs. the images in the blog below, but wonder if they are too dark.

It’s been a while that we had clear skies with no clouds in sight.  .  Solar Activity is Very Low with no C-class flares in the last two days.  In addition, the Sun is spotless again and the spotless count since Solar Max is now at 74. Despite the lack of spots, the Sun displays a very nice filament in the Southern Hemisphere as well as some nice not named regions.  Today full disk images as well as some of the close ups.

Lots of clouds but enough room between them for my observing session.  Solar Activity is Low with three C-class flare in the last two days.  AR2661 has deteriorated a lot and only covers an Active Region Area of 40 millionths today while the Sunspot count is at 2.

Clear and stable skies this morning with good seeing conditions.  Solar Activity is Medium with 6 C-class flares in the last two days.  Active Region Area for AR2661 has increased from 60 to 200 millionths and it has gained one spot.  Very little prominence activity today.  Today’s images include again full disk images and close ups of the regions.

Cloudy skies this morning with a few sucker holes, just big enough to get a few images.  However the seeing was bad.  Since my last report we have had one more spotless day.  As AR2661 started to come around the Eastern limb, solar activity has picked up significantly.  In the last two days we have had 11 C-class flares, all in AR2661, accounting for Medium Solar Activity!  AR2661 covers an area of 60 millionths and contains 8 spots.  Today’s images contain close ups of the mentioned regions and full disk images as well as a few close ups of the not named region.

Lots of cirrus clouds this morning impacting the session before the clouds took over the sky.  Solar Activity is Very Low.  AR2659, now is an Dao area, while it is approaching the Western Limb.  Yesterday it produced a C3.3 and an C1.0 flare, but we will not know what will happen on the backside of the Sun.  Total Active Region Area for today has increased to 220 millionths and the Sunspot count has gone down 1 to 10 for a Wolf Number of 20. The filament on the Eastern hemisphere looks very impressive with its size exceeding 100k  miles.  Some small prominences are visible, and I did capture those at the Western Limb.

Few clouds with average seeing.  Solar Activity remains Very Low with one active region.  The only active region, AR2659, has more than doubled its active region area to 170 millionths and has evolved from a Dsi to an Dai on the McIntosh scale, while its spot count increased to 12.  An interesting filament can be observed at the Eastern limb.

Clear skies this morning with average seeing.  Solar Activity is Very Low with no flares in the last two days.  Only one Region is left, the others have disappeared. AR2659’s Active Region Area has increased from 30 to 80 millionths and its spot count has increased from 5 to 9.  Other than that, not much is happening as can be seen in some of the close-ups, except maybe a nice, very high prominence at the NE limb.  Almost too faint for my SM40.

Observed very early today before the thunderstorms arrived.  Solar Activity is Very Low with no flares in the last two days.  A new sun spot has popped up so we are having three Active Regions today, AR2656 an Hax spot,  AR2658 an Hrx, and the new AR2659 which has made it already to an Dao,  making the Sun quite interesting.  In addition a nice prominence at the NE limb.  Total Active Region Area for today is 70 millionths with a total sun spot count of 5. Full disk images today as well as close ups of the prom and the other interesting areas.

A short session between and through the clouds.  Got frustrated with the clouds so only WL today.  Solar Activity does not change, and stays at Very Low.  Flares have been small for a while and it has been over 1 month since a C-class flare was observed (4/18).  The Total Active Region Area and the Total Spot Number for today have not changed and stay at 30 and 4 resp.