Sun in HAlpha / CaK / White Light With Lunt LS100THa / Stellarvue SV80s + Lunt CaK filter or Baader AstroSolar Safety film Uploaded 12/31/11Weekly Report For the week of Saturday December 24 - Friday December 30
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During my week off for the Holidays, I was able to get in my morning shooting session nearly every day, being cloudless for most of that time. The weeks before were filled with clouds and rain, so I felt this was my reward for my patience. I took hundreds of images, but here is the best three or four from each date. Im posting them mostly 1290 x 960 which is reduced from the cameras native 1600 x1200. Working with such huge files is very time consuming, and I have now mostly automated the white light, Ha disk, and CaK disk images with Avistack. It does poorly however on prom images, and those are left for Registax 6 which does better on those. Also, my wonderful wife and Santa brought me a blazing fast huge laptop for xmas, and this will cut my processing time in 1/4, and my file copying time from 4 hours to a few minutes. That will be for the next batch of images next week! And another point here, starting on December 28th, I no longer am using wavelets for post processing of the hydrogen alpha images. I am using an iterative high pass filtering, which yields twice the detail and sharpness, at a fraction of the artifacts and noise. All white light images are taken with the Stellarvue SV80s 80mm f/6 with Zeiss optics. An Baader Astro solar safety film 5.0 and Baader Continuum filter + IR blocker was used for all white light full disks. For close ups, the wedge was used with the same filter combination, and a Televue 5x Powermate Barlow. The Hydrogen Alpha images are with our new Lunt LS100THa/B1800. Full disk is with a .5x Antares focal reducer on a shortie nose piece from Owl Optical. The close ups are with the 2.5x Televue Powermate. All shots with the DMK51 USB camera. |
December 24th
The week started by the domination of the solar disk with the huge sunspot AR1384 seen below in this white light image. But another very attractive and active group was entering the eastern limb at this time, the AR1386 group. It has continued to grow all week and flare quite frequently.
AR1382 leaving us on the western limb.
Seeing was poor today, but still AR1386 is showing tons of promise.
Two part composite across the disk in Halpha light. Look at those gorgeous parallel filaments!
December 26th
AR1384 is showing elongation as leading spots usually do. It will be starting to break up soon and shrink.
AR1382 is almost over the limb. Here is a close up with the 5x in variable seeing. Waves of turbulence float across the image.
AR1386 is now starting to grow and is joined by more and more smaller pores and sunspots.
Halpha with a small arch prominence.
Large "Crawling Bear" Prom on limb...
December 27th
Sunrise! And the sun will clear the pine trees around 8:47am each day now. This is the scene with my 80mm as I wait for the sun to finally clear the nearby pine trees. At our elevation of 5150 feet, nearly every tree is either a Juniper or Pinion Pine.
Seeing much better today, you can clearly see the granulation in this 5x white light view of the big spot.
Hydrogen alpha images, 2.5x
The "Crawling Bear" Prom is changing daily
Another large prom on the limb.
December 28th
Today, I decided to do some Calcium K imaging. This is with the 80mm f/6 and Lunt B600 module. AR1384 is now moving off the disk, and is starting to dissiningrate.
AR1384 with the 2.5x Barlow. Seeing is much worse in the UV range, and so I have never been able to yet use the 5x like I can with white light with the same instrument.
Now you can see our stunning sunspot trio on the eastern limb. This is a very photogenic moment!
Halpha view of the sunspot trio on the eastern limb dominated by AR1386. Here is where we stop using wavelets.
Massive blocky looking prom on the western limb.
Slinky type arch prom on eastern limb!
December 29th
Now AR1386 is starting to steal the show. It has morphed into four beautiful sunspots, each a large object in their own right.
Closer view of AR1386 area.
Full disk in Hydrogen alpha. A few proms, but the filament action on the disk is increasing again.
AR1386 highlighted with the new post processing method. The bright areas are C class flares.
December 30th
AR1386 is now a superb group for limb imaging. Here, the seeing was average, but the faculae and small pores can be seen clearly.
A Full disk shot in Halpha showing a big complex on the eastern limb of tree like prominences. These are coming on as the sun rotates, and it will be very interesting to see what they end up looking like as they change. A large snake like filament is on the upper left. The bright ring around the sun here is not the disk of the sun, but the upper most chromosphere which is mostly spicules.
A closer look at the proms. The new processing method really brings out the fine details in the proms! I am looking forward to more Halpha imaging now more than ever.
Thanks for looking.
