The Dutch Observatory

Saturday 2015-06-06.  The Sky is pretty stable this morning.  The Sun shows very few prominences and they are very small, but the active regions still stick out especially in Calcium-K which shows a nice light bridged AR2362.  So, today two full disk images again, one with the ASI120MM and the other with the DMK41 as well as a close up of Active Regions 2360,61 and 62 in CaK.  Today 7 active regions with 29  sunspots covering 420 millionths.

A nice morning with great Seeing conditions.  Today I took the DMK41 out again and made a full disk image with it as well as the ASI120.  The close ups are with the ASI camera and the Meade140 barlow cell and the Klee 3x.  The Sun looks beautiful and the greater area around AR2360 looks like a giant Sun burst.  Today’s sun shows 6 active regions with a total of 20 sunspots covering 340 millionth.  Flare activity has gone up again to 11 flares mostly coming from 2361.

The Sun produced 2 C-class flares in the last day or so and is back to 3 active regions.  The 8 sunspots total about 100 millionths and the great filaments from a week ago are gone.  Today a nice prom at the west side where the filaments disappeared.  The good news is that we have not had a spotless day so far.
Today a full disk image and two close ups of AR2356.  One using the cell of the Meade 140 2x barlow screwed onto the camera and the other using  the Klee 3x.

I got tired of waiting for Solar or Lunar transits of the ISS, so I tried a direct image again like I used to do in 2008-2010. This was the first time without an Alt/Az mount with the C11 on the EQ6. A lot more challenging, but I managed to get a half decent frame. The pass was on the west side of my location, so the main solar panels stayed in the shadow. Never the less I am happy with the result.

The activity on the Sun remains very low.  Two Active Regions with a total of three spots.  Total spot area today is 70 millionths and no flares in the last two days.  The large filament starts to reach the western edge of the Sun and the SW limb shows a very nice prominence.  So overall the Sun is still very nice to observe.  The skies were pretty stable so I took my SVC80 back out again to image AR2356 through the Baader 0.3u photographic filter combined with the continuum filter. Today also close ups in H-a, CaK in addition to the whole disk image.

This is the lowest activity I have seen the Sun in a long time and a great contrast in what it was 7 months ago.  Yesterday only two Active Regions with two sunspots each covering 40 millionths total.  Today even less: 1 Active Region with one sunspot only covering 60 millionths and no flares in the last two days.  Now that’s low!   However the filaments make up for this.  The huge filament that we have been seeing for over a week is still very nice as it approaches the western limb of the Sun.  Today a full disk image as well as a close up of the filament.

A beautiful day with a low activity Sun.  The number of named Active Regions has increased to 6 with 4 C-class flares in the last two days.  Sunspot area has increased to 160 millionths.  The filaments are very nice and large.  The three filaments in the NE quadrant stretch out for at least 170,000 miles.  The Eastern limb also shows some nice prom activity.  Today a full disk Sun in Ha and two close ups.  One of the area around 2353 and the second one shows the three active regions 2349, 50 and 53.

Yesterday we did start a new Carington Rotation.  The Sun is real calm today with three named Active Regions which produced only 2 C-class flares in the last two days.  Six spots only, with a size of only 70 millionths.  That however does not mean that the sun does not look great!  Filaments and a beautiful FilaProm make up for the low activity.  Today a full disk image with a close up of the filaprom at the NE limb.

The Sun’s activity is getting low again with only 5 C-class flares in the last two days.  Sunspot area has also gone down dramatically and is now only 220 millionths between the 7 named Active Regions.  I got the mounting bracket back for my PST-CaK, so today, the Calcium-K PST came out again in addition to the Ha SolarMax40.  Today’s images a full disk image of the full Solar Disk with some beautiful prominences everywhere in Ha, and a close up of AR2348 in CaK.

The Sun on 2015-05-17 in moderate seeing.   Activity on the Sun is very low with no flares in the last two days, although there are a good number of active regions.  33 Sunspots today with a total Sunspot area of 590 millionths.  The nice prom from the 13th is gone but you can see it a s a filament (dark curved sliver) on the surface of the North Eastern Limb of the Sun.  Very cool !!