sheffieldsunwatcher

I saw what I took to be a flare this morning - a much more intensely bright and whiter spot near the largest of the sunspot areas, which had disappeared when I looked again at the sun a relatively short time later. (I'm new to solar observing so I need to get on top of the 'c class' etc. classifications!) There were numerous impressive sights, but then unfortunately the clouds started rolling in...

Great photos; I'm envious, as clouds here have kept the sun hidden throughout most of the week

Here's a link to a little video of the prom, from NASA: Whopping prom. (I think it's the same one!)

I followed the evolution of that prom for an hour or so: it was amazing, the most impressive thing that I've seen in the relatively short time that I've had my Lunt scope. It went from bushy, to a huge flame shape, with material arcing back to the surface, and then had pretty much vanished for me by c.2:30 pm. I took a couple of not very good shots using my phone, as I had to have some visual record of it! Please excuse the photo quality: I'm no astrophotographer.

Thanks all

Yes, I'm very much still learning how to use the scope, which is clearly a very refined piece of kit. The point about the seeing was made very clear today, when there were moments when things suddenly snapped into better focus - I'd forgotten about that aspect of observing!

Ey up Mr Spock/Michael - I'm just over the way from you, by the look of it, on the Crookes side of the Rivelin valley

Hello, As someone who has been mining very helpful information from all sorts of threads in the site over the last couple of months, it feels like the time to post an introduction...I lurked on the forum for a stretch of time in the past - about 13 or so years ago - when I did some nighttime astronomy using an 8" Skywatcher Dobsonian; a light-polluted Sheffield suburb isn't really the best site for visual observing, although I spent plenty of happy and often cold nights viewing the skies. I'd always wanted to view the sun in H-alpha and so took the plunge recently by buying a used (single-stacked) tilt tuned Lunt LS60. There haven't been all that many chances to use it in recent weeks - although things are looking up over the next few days - but I got some observing in today, which was fantastic despite the relatively sketchy seeing. The forum has been very helpful so far, so thanks to so many people for sharing their wisdom!