paulastro

Thank you Mark, I'm really pleased you managed to observe it.

Here's a post I've just put on Solar Observing along with four sketches. https://stargazerslou.nge.com/topic/383334-septembet-18th-wonderful-dynamic-prom-activity-this-morning/

In town this morning, doing some errands. Reading the paper and having a cofee in the car at 9.14 and decided to check GONG. Wow, really dynamic bright prom activity. Coffee cup emptied out of the window and I rushed home - within the legal driving regulations of course. At home around 9.25 and outside with the PST. Great activity, did a first quick sketch and quickly sent a 'Heads Up' post on SGL. I observed until 11.20 with one interruption to take my better half to the train station. Completed four quick sketches during my session. Rather hurried but they give an idea of what was going on. Excellent activity, and MUCH better than my drawings can show. Perhaps I should have checked GONG before going to town 😁.

I'm in the 'Black Hood Gang' too Mark, it's essential kit 🙂

I'm glad you're having some good views Mark. I could see the three filaments ok in better moments, they must be nailed on with the double stack 🙂.

10.07. Still active, though appears to be subsiding a bit. Could change fairly quickly though.

Changing almost by the minute as I'm observing through the PST.

As title, look now if you can, changing rapidly.

Pete,I think I first started observing sunspots in 1968 or 1969, but I didn't keep very good notes at first. I do remember some of the big individual spots. One particularly in 1971 I think which I observed with a friend, we put an observation in The Astronomer Magazine. The great thing was in those days (no internet!) was you would never know what was on the sun unless you observed yourself. I can still remember the excitement I felt if there was a large individual spot or group of spots on view. Below is a a page of my observing book for Oct 17th 1970, showing one of my early solar drawings. The second pic shows me and a friend (l'm on the right) taken on Feb 25th 1971. We had earlier been thwarted in seeing a large partial solar eclipse. Yes, that's correct, when it was over the cloud moved away leaving a perfect blue sky! Happily I've seen many solar eclipses since, including total eclipses in 1973 and 2006.

In my view, globular clusters are fairly underwhelming in any scope below 5 inches/120mm. OK, a four inch will resolve some stars, but not totally resolved as some people claim. Anything less than 4 inches is really disappointing, making them like fuzz balls. It's a matter of choice, but I prefer a GC to look like it is, rather than having to strain to see its true nature.

Yes Pete, I have a lot of photos and sketches taken at the last maximum when I was lucky enough to own a double stack 60mm solar scope. Looking back now its hard to believe it was as good. As you say, it's certainly had an uplift in activity recently. With white light as well, which I've been observing for over four cycles.

Had a look at the Sun this morning at 10.20 to 10.40 with the PST. There was continuous varying thin cloud throughout. Despite this, there was a large detached prom remnent off the E limb. It was not easy to see most of the time. I checked on GONG at the end of the session and the base of it was just visible in the field of an image from El Teide taken at 09.32 UT. I presume this is the remnents of the one imaged and posted on the SOLAR IMAGING forum yesterday? https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/382961-huge-prom-ar2866-2668-11-9-21/

Of course Weybourne is not far from Kelling. I can't wait to be back there on October 4th 😊.

Excellent John, well written. That reminds me of when I spent a night along with some Beduins in the Sinai desert many years ago. As you say it was mind blowing, I actually cried I was so overwhelmed. I remember seeing a small hazy looking oval shape on the horizon which was M31 rising. When looking north, there were so many stars it took a while for me to make out the Plough! I also learnt how noisy camels are when bedded down fir the night 😁. Nowadays I have to settle for my annual deep sky fix at Kelling every Autumn.

Basically, the answer depends on three things. How long your arms are, where the slow motions have to be attached to the mount ,and how long your scope is 😊. You have to be able to reach them, and grasp then when you can't see what your doing if observing at night. Choose the shortest which meets these requirement. Too long and they will get in the way and possibly cause telescope shake. Too short and you won't reach them. Over the years I have acquired a veritable assortment of them, just the knobs, long and short floppy ones and ones with rods instead of cables. They have all been used at some time or other.

I observed late this afternoon, and observed with the 102ED F7. I saw five of the six sunspot groups shown on spaceweather.com, but I couldn't see anything of AR2870. Below is a single frame taken with the Olympus E-M5 Mk11 taken at 5.56 pm, and a crop taken from it showing three of the ARs. spaceweather.com gave a sunspot number of 124, presumably the highest of the current solar cycle? This presumably included AR2870 which may have disapated by the time I was observing.

Agree, 2nd shot is superb, and the others aren't bad 😂. Great imaging.

Thanks for posting, great shots.

I actually said it was also available from Amazon for the same price on my original post if you look below the description - so I beat youself and Nugs to it 🤣.

Thanks Mark. The same here, I've bought it for many years. I also buy the one below, but I've never seen it half price ☺. I prefer the Philips version, though there is often something in both of them of use which isn't in the other! A bit like AN and S@N magazines.

I'm pleased you have it sorted, your scope looks great on the mount. It will be more stable of course, the lower you have the extending column on the tripod. No need to feel a 'doofus', whatever that might be. Looking at the Japanese manual again, I'm not surprised you were a little confused. Though for Japanese speakers it's probably fine 😊. Hope you have first light with it soon.

Excellent description Stu. The following is the most useful pic in the 26 page Japanese instruction book re how to assemble it 😁.

You have tried to attach it to the fitting where the arm should be attached to the base of the mount!! See the photos below for how it should look. The 'L' shaped bracket does not come with the mount. I use it with the PST which has to be supported from below.

Available from a Works store near you, or on-line. Reduced from £6.99 to £3.00. Well worth the full pice, so a real bargain. Also from Amazon at the same price.

Some can fall off if not tightened on properly, but its also important not to use too much force or you'll mar the bit you attach them to. I use two slow motion cables I already had. I've no idea who made them. I don't know of any good or bad ones particularly, I don't recall where I got mine. Most are probably OK if used properly. At least if you buy the ones that FLO sell for the Scopetech they should be fine, and they have a good returns policy. In my view slow motion controls are essential as they make things so much easier. The mount is made so well that when your scope is balanced on the mount, and the clutches adjusted, (two knobs) you can easily go from pushing it into place and using the slow motion controls without readjusting the clutches every time you do it. The clutches need surprisingly little pressure on them by the way, use the least pressure you need. When you use the same telescope you shouldn't need to readjust the clutches, as long as you balance it each time you put the scope on the mount. It reality its all really easy to balance the scope and adjust the clutches, and probably will not take you more than a couple of minutes at the most.