The Dutch Observatory

Another Sunny day with relative good seeing 8/10.  Solar activity today is Very Low again.  In fact the last C-class flare was 6 days ago and the largest Flare since then a B 9.4 on the 9th. We have 4 Active Regions, AR2542, 43, 44, and 45, with the largest region still being AR2542 and increasing today by 20 to 160 millionths, and a Dai on the McIntosh scale.  Total region area is 350 millionths and total sunspot count is 27.  Today again full disk images in Ha, CaK and WL/540nm with close ups of the mentioned regions.

Clear Skies again. Solar activity is Very Low with no flares in the last two days. We have four regions with a total area of 270 millionths. the four regions support a total of 30 Sun Spots and the largest area is still AR2542. Today my usual three full disk images and close ups in the different wavelengths.

Well, I did submit the images, data and calculations for the Planetary Transit Special Award.  The pictures show the over 2 foot picture of the composite images of the Sun and a close up showing the parallax between the two sites.  The idea is to calculate the distance between the Sun and Earth ( 1 AU) using this information.  I believe I did not bad, so we’ll wait and see what the coordinator of this program says.

I also have uploaded a composite of 10 images showing the ingress and 9 images showing egress, which were timed the same way. Based on my measurements, I saw the ingress about 2.5 minutes later than the times identified in publications which referred to the times related to the center of Earth.

Some initial images of the Mercury Transit from yesterday.  For those interested in calculating the AU. I have uploaded full disk images in the solar archive which were taken at the following times: 1530:30, 1600:00, 1630:00, 1700:00; 1730:30 and 1800:01 UT. The time was exactly at the time identified (Full hour and half an hour) and was synchronized with the official US time http://time.gov . In addition, the location from where the images were taken is identified on the images.

Less than 24 hours until the Mercury Transit!!  The Sun’s activity today is Low with only one C-class flare in the last two days. Four Active Regions with a total area of 200 millionths.  The Spot count today is at 11.  Started to increase the size of the WL/540nm image because the Sun now fits on the chip of the ASI174MM!!  Lets me use 1200 pixels for the image.  The nice filaments around AR2542 are mostly gone, but the Sun still looks very nice.

Clear Skies this morning with seeing at 7/10.  Solar activity is Low today with one C-class flare.  We have the same 4 Active Regions with AR2536 moving out of sight today.  Total region area today is at 180 millionths with 16 Sunspots total.  It is quiet today, but the circular filaments around AR2542 look awesome and by Monday it will be very nice located for the Mercury transit.  The weather forecast is calling now for 90% clouds at 7 am Monday   Hope it changes.

Bob Jacobi and I did a great all day outreach event at McConnell Middle yesterday, so I  was unable to capture images.  Today clear Skies, with great seeing.  Solar activity is Very Low again with no flares.  We have four regions and the total Spot area has reduced from 370 millionths yesterday to 190 today.  Total spots reduced from 17 to 15.  Today I tried a capture the Sun using the ASI174MM and the SVC80 without focal reducer and the Sun now just seems to cover the height of the chip.  Might use that on Monday with the Mercury transit.  Today images in the three wavelengths as well as clos ups in Ha and CaK.

An early observing session with seeing at 4-5/10.  Solar activity is Low today with four Active Regions and three C-class flares in the last two days.  Total active region area is down to 160 millionths.  Total sunspot count is at 17.  We can see what I believe are the remnants of AR2533 coming around the Eastern limb today.  I caught a nice little flare off the western limb today in CaK.  Today I practiced for the Mercury transit and decided to stick with the ASI174MM instead of the DMK.  Much shorter exposure times and transfers and the resolution is also better.  So today I am posting my ususal full disk images and close ups of the regions

Had holes big enough in the clouds for my imaging session.  Seeing 8/10.  Solar activity is still Low with three C-class flares in the last two days, with the largest one a C3.5 coming from AR2540.   Five regions today with an increased total area to 380 millionths.  The regions show a total of  26 sunspots.  The largest regions are D and E classified on the McIntosh scale.  Full disk images today as well as close ups of the different regions in all wavelengths.