The Dutch Observatory

Atlantis Goodby!! Frank Garner, Stephen Ramsden, his frien Eric, and I got together to attempt to image the last chance for a solar transit of the ISS with the shuttle Atlantis from our area. A layer of “thin” clouds brought the “astronomical seeing” down to poor. Had to turn up the gamma and the gain way above my normal settings to get a reasonable shutterspeed for a transit image. Here my result. Not  great, but good enough to say “Goodby to Atlantis”.

Yesterday the clouds did not break up until later in the afternoon, too late to image for me.  Today, a thin layer of clouds, but no problem for a nice whole disk image and a closeup of Active Regions 1249 and 50.  A lot of activity with 5 regions. And while 1246 might be at the limb or gone tomorrow, a new region is emerging at the NE limb.

I imaged the sun with some clouds moving through the image this morning and noticed later that Registax 6 aligned according to the line of movement of the clouds. The image looked terribly striped. Went back to Registax 5 with one alignment point and it came out allright. Full disk image and closeups of AR1247 and 1245.

Today was the launch of the last Space Shuttle mission of Atlantis STS135.  I could not miss this, so did not get to image until Atlantis was in its lower orbit.  Today another image of the whole disk sun with closeups of AR1243 and a new area in the SE, which I also imaged yesterday and the day before, with some awesome C flare activity.  Waiting for it to be named.

We’re supposed to have thunderstorms in the afternoon all week, but in the morning it was very clear.  AR1244 has moved beyond our view.  AR1243 is still very nice and it looks a new sunspot will be developing in the northern eastern hemisphere a little off the eastern limb.  Made a full disk image today as well as two closeups shown in inverse.

This morning the sky was covered with thin puffy transparent clouds before the storms rolled in and I was surprised how much detail of the sun was visible.  In planetary imaging I would have had to quit.  The region at the SE limb, which is not named yet, shows yesterday’s prom as a nice filament today.  For the rest there was not much prom activity today. 

Clear skies today!  Made an whole disk image of the sun and a closeup of AR1243 and 44.  Also a new region seems to continue to develop at the South Eastern limb of the sun. 

click image for full size

The thin layer of clouds was a little thicker this morning but it allowed an image of the sun before it started clouding over completely and the storms started moving in.  Today is probably the last day before AR1242 moves to the back side of the sun.  The other regions keep growing.

Click thumb nail for original image

Despite a thin layer of clouds before the thunder showers this afternoon, I made these images this morning. The prominences at the NW limb continue to be very nice, while the active regions keep growing.

Today another nice view of AR1242, 43 and 44, and another closeup of the prominances at the NW limb.  These images will be the last from me in Carington Rotation 2111.  Tomorrow CR 2112 will start.