The Dutch Observatory

Clear Skies, but variable gusts of wind making it unstable with seeing around 2/6.    Only a full disk image and a question arises:  Where have all the Sun Spots gone?    AR2259 is reduced to a size of 100 and AR61 and 62 each are only 10, with a total spot count of 19 and only 2 C-class flares in the last two days.  The sun is really quiet today…..

In the evening of January 18th, the Jovian moon Ganymede occulted Europa.  While Ganymede was moving in front of Jupiter towards the Jovian disk, which showed its shadow, Europa came from behind the disk while moving to the right in the sequence.  At 2:34 UT Ganymede occulted Europa.  The seeing conditions were bad up to 1-2 out of 6, but if you want to capture such an event you don’t ask for anything but that you can see it.  I took 12 sets of LRGB captures for a total of 48 images (Just in case).  A total of over 18GB of data, and ended up using only three IR  images.  The moons have been pushed quite a bit to make them come out better.  This was my first capture of Jupiter, and a Mutual Event as well, during the current apparition.  Click the thumbnail to see the animation.

Clear Skies after a what seemed an eternity of rainy and cloudy days.  Seeing about 3/6.  Today a full disk image as well as a close up of 2259 which dropped from a size of 260 on the previous day to 160 millionth. The activity is very low with only 5 C-class flares in the previous 2 days.

Clear Skies on the 9th, with reasonable seeing conditions (3/6) sufficient to also bring out the SV80 for as close-up in white light/continuum.  The dominant active region today is AR2257 although its size is a modest 170 millionth.  Both close-ups made with the SM40, and the SV80, used a 3x barlow.   The white light image is a stack of 5 hand selected images out of 1200, stacked and sharpened in Registax6 and processed in Photoshop.

Today we had some clear skies, but not stable enough for white light close ups.  A full disk image and a Ha close-up of AR2253.  This Active Region reached its peak two days ago at 900 millionth, but today its size is only 700.  Its flare activity has been mostly in the C-class with two small M-class flares on the 4th.

My daughter Tanya placed two pinhole cameras in Atlanta.  One in Cabbage town, the second one in Midtown.  The Midtown image came out great and is shown here.  The period covered is from the Summer Solstice until the Winter Solstice 2014.  This is the best Solar graph we have gotten in the last year.  We’re ready for the next cycle from the Winter solstice until Spring Equinox or Summer Solstice.

OK this week it is time to remove the pinhole cameras if you obtained one earlier this year, or if you made one yourself to generate a Solargraph.  Between now and the 21st, the Sun will only drop another 5 seconds which is only 1/6 of the dot that the Sun generates on the photo paper.  Here is the Solargraph made from my deck behind my house between the Summer Solstice and today.  The washed out areas on either side are created by small trees obstructing the Sun.  The dark area on top of the image is the canopy of a 70′ tree at the side of the deck that obstructs the sun in the summer months from above.

Clear Skies with reasonable seeing, but not good enough for WL images through the SVC80.  Today the full disk shows AR2227, 30, 32, 34, 35, 36, and 37.  Few flares today.  The close ups show AR2230 and the second image gives a nice view of AR2235 and 37.  Both images show some nice prominence structures as well.  AR2230 has increased 10 to 190 mill today and gained 3 spots.

Had to skip a day and the seeing is a little better today, so spend some time on close ups, including a white light with the SVC80 and the continuum and photo film filter.  The full disk shows AR2227, 30, 32, 34, 36, 37 and 38. AR2230 has grown to 180 mill. and 18 spots but flares are at 2 for the day.  Two close up images.  The first an Ha image and the second shows AR27, 30 and 34 through the continuum filter.  The structure of AR2230 is nice with the trailing spots.

Seeing still not good, so another full disk image today with AR2227, 30, 32, 33, 34 and 35.  The number of spots in AR2230 has increased to 20, but the flares only show 3  C-class flares for the day.  AR2232 seems to stabilize at 240 mill.