Sun August 30th

Another quick image of the Sun early this morning-  As we head toward Fall, it is becoming obvious that I will not be taking these weekday images of the Sun on days when I have to work...I really need the sun to be higher above the horizon for the best images.

Compare today's image to yesterdays picture and you can see the increased activity in just 24 hours...there are new spot regions developing as well as the existing regions seem to appear more active.  Click the image below to enlarge to full size:

Rise and Shine

Today is a very busy day for me and with the humidity levels lower than they have been in several weeks and the resulting blue(er) skies, I made an effort to get up early today to observe the Sun in white light.  Due to my schedule today I was out observing the Sun before 7 AM (MST) while it was less than 10 degrees above the horizon.  Given that I was looking through approximately twice the atmosphere than I would be during a mid-morning observation, I was pleasantly surprised at how steady the image was.  The picture below was taken with the Sun at an altitude of just 12 degrees above the horizon, at 6:56 AM local time.  For comparison, the image at right is from the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Click to enlarge to full size

Moonlit night with Neil Armstrong

Yesterday saw the passing of an American icon, Neil Armstrong- While I am not old enough to remember his footsteps on the moon (apparently I was engrossed at the time in whatever captures the attention of 4 month old babies) his legacy defined for kids my age what is possible-

"Maybe when we grow up, we can move to the moon!"

Not me, I am going to live on Mars!"

"Oh yeah, I am going to go to another star!!"

This was not an actual conversation, but we had many like it- and while things such as cell phones have become part and parcel of our existence, human exploration of space is no longer the stuff of present day childhood dreams.  The model rockets that adorned the bookshelves of our youth, the favorite astronaut that we all had, have been supplanted by ipods and star athletes.  I am not against progress and I am in fact a big sports fan-  but what has happened to our sense of space exploration?

Last night was relatively clear and to honor Neil Armstrong in my own small way I snapped a few images of the moon with my Canon T2i using my 12 inch LX200 SCT and a 2X barlow lens.

Montes Apenninus, Eratosthenes (Terraced crater, left of center at bottom)

Straight Wall (Rupes Recta), Mare Nubium

Archimedes, Autolycus, Aristillus, Cassini, Montes Alps, Plato 

In closing, the video below is a nice reminder of where we have been as explorers of space, and where we are headed-  Turn up your speakers and listen to Optimus Prime!

Hawkish behavior

Last night I was up at the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter doing some preparatory work with the 20 inch Jamieson Telescope which we will be using with several middle school groups over the next couple months.  Many days around sunset there are several hawks (likely a family) which play and hunt along the domed ridge.  The ridge is literally the summit of Mt Lemmon and the hawks are able to sit nearly still on the updrafts for long periods of time, without even flapping their wings.  It is hard not to believe that in addition to the playing and hunting, the hawks are coming to this place and facing west at sunset to peacefully appreciate the majestic view.

Unfortunately the skies were overcast yesterday around the time the hawks came out to play so it was very difficult to take pictures of them, as there were only fleeting moments of sunlight to illuminate them.  At left, a silhouette, and the one below from a brief moment when the hawk was illuminated slightly.

Click to enlarge

Active Region 11543

Following my trial runs with a borrowed barlow lens, I purchased my own 2x barlow this week to use in imaging sunspots.  While the weather has been mostly overcast the past few days, I was able to get out this morning and snap some quick pictures of departing Active Region 11543 in white light.  The seeing conditions were rather poor with haze and passing clouds, but I was more interested in continuing to learn what exposure and ISO settings were best for closer up images of sunspots.  Already I have discovered just how sensitive the camera senor is and I am learning that depending on the location of the spot region I will need to utilize different settings.

For example, spot regions that are near the middle of the solar disc can utilize shorter exposures as there is more light reaching the sensor, as opposed to spot regions near the limb where a smaller portion of the solar disc is in the sensors field of view.  Shorter exposures are advantageous as they are less affected by atmospheric turbulence and vibrations from the mount/telescope/camera/operator combination.

Anyway, the image at left was taken this morning with my TEC 140 APO, a Lunt Solar Systems Herschel Prism, and a Canon T2i with a 2x barlow lens.  The color is false, only added as the comments I received from friends at work on my previoius post unanimously liked the false color...and I am all about appeasing the faithful readers!  Click the image to enlarge it to full size.

Color?

I thought that I would try adding a little color to my barlowed image of yesterdays sunspot, and the result is not bad-  The few folks I queried at work all liked the color version.  Is that because they expect the Sun to be yellow?  Who knows, but I also lightened the image and perhaps that makes it a bit more pleasing.  Either way, here are the original version and the one in color.

Click to enlarge to full size

August 12 white light Sun

Another day of playing around taking pictures of the Sun in white light.  I again captured a full disc image, and again attempted using the Televue 2x Big Barlow.  I was not fighting clouds this morning which took away one degree of difficulty, and I discovered just how tricky it is to focus accurately at high power.

This morning I used the wonderful program BackyardEOS to capture the images and was attempting to utilize the frame and focus feature...so in addition to the 2x magnification of the barlow, I was using the 5x magnification of the software.  It was an exercise in atmospheric turbulence!  The Sunspots were large on the monitor and went from fuzzy to sharp to fuzzy so fast I was amazed.  In any event, below is a full disc taken without the barlow and a crop of the barlowed image containing the large spot region 11543.

Click the images to enlarge to full size