Sun in White Light With Explore Scientific AR152 + Baader Wedge Uploaded 1/9/16 Daily Report For Saturday morning
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Over 15 inches of snow have fallen in the past few days, and when the storm cleared out this morning - I could see a blue sky for the first time in a week! As the sun rose the first task was upon me, to dig out the observatory to take some solar images. But this was not an easy task, FIRST you had to get TO the observatory! Here is a shot of the path that leads from our house to the backyard roll off roof observatory:
After taking a broom to the low hanging trees I made my way out to the main telescope shed. Here is what I saw. fortunatley - the snow had mostly slid off the roof, and only an inch remained. That is why this has a corregated steel roof. But the trees laid on the roof track, and I had to bang the ice off with a hammer to free up the path to roll the roof off.
On the side you can see the four foot tall mountain of snow that slid off the roof!
After an hour of work, the roof was free to roll back, and here is the inside of the observatory with the fish eye lens, you can see the massive amount of snow in the trees just outside the wall. It was 20F out at this point - and the mirror of the telescope had a layer of ice on it. After an hour of trying to defrost the mirror without success I mounted the six inch refractor on its side and did some solar imaging.
Success - the roof is rolled back and we are ready to examine the sun in the deep blue sky.
Here is a two part panorama of the equatorial regions of the solar disk with the AR152 stopped to 4 inches. The seeing was very bad, and the sun was trembling in and out of focus.
With full aperture and the 5x barlow, some close ups of the sunspots were taken. Not too sharp, but at least 2 arc second seeing you get something...
Right after I finished and rolled the roof back shut, I went up on the balcony and shot the Rim with the telephoto. By then it had warmed up to 21F. Those trees on top are gigantic ponderosa pines.
Next, looking south west we can see the east side of the Mazatzal Mountains covered in snow as well:
Thanks for looking, its been quite a morning!
