Last shot at the sun...

...for now...Today I dropped my dedicated Hydrogen Alpha telescope off at Lunt Solar Systems for a pressure tuner upgrade.  Originally these scopes were built with a mechanism which allowed the user to tune the etalon filter by turning a small thumb-wheel.  More recently, Andy Lunt made a great technological advance in tuning technology by developing an air pressure tuning system.  Once I have the new system installed I will write more about it, however, you can certainly research it yourself on the Lunt website above.

Seeing conditions today were below average with a somewhat turbulent upper atmosphere and 15 mph winds here at the Lost Pleiad Observatory.  This made seeing fine detail more difficult although with patience, several active regions and filaments were observed.

Instrument: Lunt 60mm Ha/BF1200

Eyepiece: Baader Hyperion Zoom at 16mm

Time of sketch 1630-1715 UT February 15, 2010

Solar Diameter: 32.38'

Carrington Rotation: 2093
 

Lots of curving filaments were visible in Active Region (AR) 11047- which in the sketch above is the AR to the south. Left to right (west to east) in the northern portion of the sketch are AR's 11045, 11046, and 11048. AR 11048 was clearly the brightest of the bunch.  Not many prominences were observed today, but there were some visible associated with AR 11045.  Just for kicks, I thought that the picture to the right, taken today by the SOHO satellite a couple hours before my observation, would be interesting.