The Dutch Observatory

Another relative clear and sunny morning with steady skies.  If the Astronomical League’s Solar Ha program called for a Dinosaur Prom, today was the day to observe.  Some nice proms at the Western limb, and the top one resembles a Dinosaur climbing the Sun .  The sun’s activity is down again with only 4 regions with a total of 16 spots covering an area of 480 millionth and to top it off, only 4 C-Class flares in the last 2 days.  Today a full disk image with a closeup of the west limb regions as well as the Dinosaur Prom and a close up in WL/continuum of AR2305.

Clear Skies again.  The Sun is increasing its activity and the sky is relative stable.  Today we have 5 relative active regions that produce flares.  Total sunspot area is 580 millionth and the sun produced 17 C-class flares in the last 2 days.

We did an outreach event for Kate’s Club of Atlanta at Panola Mountain State Park.  During lunch I took the time to make a few images of the Sun.  Here a full disk image as well as a close up of AR2305.

Saturday evening was the first time in a very long time where the seeing was relative good for planetary imaging, so I gave Jupiter a try. Made a total of 8 series and one of them was usable. The GRS is just rising at the preceding limb and the NEB shows a large disturbance.

The skies are covered with thin clouds with bands of dense low level clouds tracking through. Despite the bad seeing through the clouds, the Sun showed a very nice and long hedgerow prom, which caused me to image today.  The hedgerow prom on the NE limb of the Sun showed for a length of 160,000 miles and was 40,000 miles high.  Activity on the Sun is also very nice.  The magnetic activity around the plages near AR2305 is shown very nice.  Today active regions reported with a total sunspot area of 650 millionth and 9 C-class flares in the previous 24 hours.

The sky cleared up nice with some good seeing today 5/6.  Today the Sun is getting a more active again, however, so far mostly small areas and small flares.  The air was stable so I could make a WL/Continuum image again with the Stellarvue.  Today the Sun has 39 spots with a total of 540 millionth/

I used the close ups captured today to show how they relate to each other.  Click the image to see the animation of how AR2297 looks at 5 different focal length through the SM40. It starts with the full disk size and ends with the Klee 3x barlow. The intermediate images are made using the Meade 140 2x barlow with out extension tube, with a 1/4″ extension and a 1″ extension tube.

The Sun on March 18th.  Early clearing with clouds returning later.  Today made a series of images captured using different focal lengths. The normal full disk image as well as a close up using the Klee 3x barlow.  A variation today is some images made by using the Meade 140 2x barlow in combination with different length extension tubes. The Sun is showing a new coming region 2303 while 2297 is still around 390 millionth.

Imaging for three days in a row?  What a treat!   Today’s Sun shows 27 sunspots with a total area of 390 millionth again and AR2297 is still busy producing C-class and B-class flares.  Today another full disk image and a close up of AR2297.

Another day with some clear skies.  Today a full disk image and a close up of AR2297, who has been busy producing flares.  Total Sunspot area today 390 millionth with 25 flares in the last 24 hours