MalVeauX

Heya, Dreadful weather recently, managed to have a small window last night and the moon was around. I've been wanting to play around with color. Color moon is still out of my grasp, I'm trying to learn some new things. Of course, I learned a lot about it after this session so these colors are all wonky and all over the place. I'm hoping to get a better approach on the next session. 100mm F10 achromatic doublet + Grasshopper3 IMX253 camera + Astronomik Green filter: 200mm F10 SCT + 224MC (Color, the color is wonky, only one panel came out the way I wanted, I couldn't for the life of me align the colors right, sigh!): Sky conditions were not great, but better than non-stop clouds and rain I've had for days! 100mm F10 (aperture mask used) achromatic doublet + Flir Grasshopper3 IMX253 camera + Astronomik Green Filter C8 Edge HD SCT (200mm F10) + ZWO ASI224MC Camera Very best,

Heya, Another cloudy, foggy day. But I had a moment in the afternoon to attempt a peak and do some tests with the IMX253 sensor via a Flir camera. The big prominence on the north eastern limb persists, I bet it would make an awesome animation but I couldn't get enough data with the non stop clouds to attempt that. So I just grabbed a disc in calcium and took a look at the small plage and filament chain and the larger prominence on the limb and called it a session. Seeing was rubbish as it was late morning and cloudy. But it was better than another week of rain! Seeing Conditions: Terrible seeing, lots of clouds, late morning is always bad, but it's all I had compared to rain for days on end lately here. Equipment: 100mm F10 masked refractor Internal sub-aperture D-ERF (Baader Red CCD IR Block filter, 50mm) PST Etalon + 10mm BF + ASI290MM 60mm F16.7 masked refractor Lunt CaK B1200 + IMX253 Very best,

Heya, A fair prominence from the field near the active region on the Eastern limb has lifted off. There's a pretty nice prominence field on the entire limb there trailing the active region. I've not seen the sky in over 11 days at this point from just storms and clouds. Even today was cloudy and foggy and I only got a chance to even take a peak late afternoon in my worst seeing conditions. The active region near the limb is interesting enough at this angle to be seen in the photosphere with decent faculae despite being small. Are Flickr BBCode links broken on Stargazer's Lounge?? Seeing was dreadful, averages were really bad, lots of clouds; but my peaks were anywhere from 1 to 1.7 arc-seconds: Equipment: 100mm F10 (masked 120mm F8.3) refractor Internal sub-aperture D-ERF (Baader Red CCD-IR Block 50mm Filter) PST Etalon ASI290MM Camera 60mm F16.7 (masked 120mm F8.3) refractor Lunt CaK B1200 Filter + IMX253 Sensor Altair Astro 395nm Filter + IMX253 Sensor Very best,

Heya, It was a cloudy morning, but it cleared up later towards 11am or so. We went outside to see our star visually and then grabbed a little data in three wavelengths to show the differences of the upper & lower chromosphere structures around AR2797 with the spot, plage, mottling, chromosphere network, filaments, k-grains and faculae. And a comparison of the photosphere to see the spot, convection cells, pores and faculae. Looks like we saw a little minor flaring in the plage near the trailing pole of AR2797. Seeing Conditions: Seeing was poor, averaging 2" per minute, however I was seeing spikes of seeing closer to 1" and 1.3" as a range fairly frequently and had a minute of sustained 1" average. Peak moments highlighted on the graph. These were the moments I was able to grab useful data in the three wavelengths over this short period of 15 minutes or so. I used lucky imaging, 170FPS in bursts of 60 seconds during those moments of good seeing to produce the images. Equipment: 100mm F10 (3D printed mask) refractor with internal sub-aperture D-ERF (Baader Red CCD IR Block Filter, 2") PST Etalon + 10mm BF (HA) Lunt CaK B1200 (CaK) Baader ND3.0 + 610nm (WL) ASI290MM Camera Very best,

Heya, I haven't seen the sky in weeks! Weather has been cold, winy, cloudy, rainy all December and into January which is just weird in Florida. It was too cold this morning, I'm a wimp, so I didn't get outside when the seeing was best despite having a clear day for the first time in many weeks. 14:00pm was when I went out and it was clear, but windy. Seeing was not good, but it was good enough to at least image. I started the afternoon just doing visual with the 60mm double stack with the kids, finally getting a day to go outside and not be cooped up with bad weather. We looked at the sun and the moon and seeing was ok visually to enjoy it and make out fine details in AR2797 and some neat prominences and some really big dark filaments around the active belt of cycle 25. The sunspot in AR2797 is interesting, already has a light bridge, not sure if it's been enough days to be the previous big spot just making a second transit or not, but it has neat activity coming out of its region with a big filament shaking off. I cracked open the observatory to chance imaging. Seeing was bad, was often bouncing around 2" to 3" but had brief moments of 1.5" which was "ok" enough for attempting imaging with a 100mm at 0.6"/pixel image scale. The seeing didn't fully support this, but it was passable enough. I didn't get much time so I just grabbed some data on the active region and surrounding area filaments and left it at that for imaging, we spent the rest of the time just doing visual and playing. Seeing Conditions: Equipment: 100mm F10 3D printed masked achromatic doublet refractor Internal sub-aperture D-ERF (2" Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter) PST etalon + 10mm BF ASI290MM Very best,

Thanks all, 🤗 North Central, around Cedar Key & Trenton area. Very best,

Heya, It was simply too cold for my Florida-behind to go out this morning, windy and freezing, so I waited until it was mid-day, seeing was terrible (for my norm). So, I went with a courser image scale and it gave me a good opportunity to use a new aperture mask that Dave made! Thanks Dave! I masked my 120mm F8.3 to 100mm F10 +/- 1mm and it worked great for getting things critically sampled where I wanted them in variable seeing conditions this afternoon (after 12pm, which is late for me!). AR2794 is pretty interesting, it's not throwing off big flares or explosions, but it has a great big faculae network around it in the photosphere, great mottling as a result in the chromosphere, and is a rather large area. There's another active area tailing right behind it that was throwing up surge prominences at the limb. Upper Chromosphere with Sunspot, Plage, Filaments, Mottling, Surge Prominences (B&W, Colored, Alt B&W & Alt Colored): Photosphere with Faculae & Convection Cells (B&W, Colored): Equipment: 120mm F8.3 refractor masked to 100mm F10 with Dave's 3D printed aperture mask insert (Thanks Dave!!) +Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter as sub-aperture internal D-ERF -> HA Filter + BF + ASI290MM (HA) +Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter as sub-aperture internal D-ERF -> Baader ND3.0 Filter + ASI290MM (Photosphere) Very best,

Hey all, I was fortunate that the clouds went away, we had setup to see it visually and the clouds were just sticking around. Then they just went on away as the temperature dropped as the sun rested behind the tree line. We were visually watching it in day light and into the sunset and then a bit into night. It was only 11 degrees elevation for us here in Florida. But I had decent seeing conditions for my image scale and was able to get a good event with lots of visual along with a last minute grab of imaging data to produce a decent image of the two gas giants and their moons in their native positions in a single image, no composite (I did process the moons and Saturn to be brighter to match Jupiter as they're much dimmer in reality). Saturn & Jupiter in Conjunction with visible Moons: C8 Edge HD SCT with 0.7x Edge Reducer ASI224MC camera 0.55"/pixel image scale 18:47pm Eastern Time 11 degrees elevation Very best,

Heya, Seeing was not great today, but was able to gather some data through lucky imaging of AR2791 (spotless) and AR2790 (small spot still). Seeing limited my resolution in short band 395nm but was still able to get something to look at that was passable, along with a quick panorama of our AR's in HA. Seeing: Equipment: 150mm F8 refractor (395nm) Baader Blue CCD-IR Block (internal sub-aperture D-ERF) + Baader ND1.8 + Altair 395nm +/- 7nm filter + 2x barlow + ASI290MM 120mm F10 refractor (HA) Baader Red CCD-IR Block (internal sub-aperture D-ERF) + PST Etalon + 10mm BF + ASI290MM Very best,

Heya, I couldn't do the late night thing, so I was looking at the moon this morning in the day time, 08:45 eastern. Lovely phase as a 44% illuminated waning gibbous. This is a 0.41"/pixel image scale single shot image (non-mosaic), 735 meters per pixel resolution, imaged at 520nm (green) in daytime seeing. Please click the Flickr/Astrobin links to see the full resolution of this thumbnail if interested. Astrobin: 150mm F8 Achromatic Doublet Refractor Astronomik 520nm Green Filter ASI183MM (IMX183) Camera Sensor 08:45am Eastern in Day Time Seeing Very best,

Heya, Chilly morning today in Florida, windy too, in the 30's F which is really cold for us. Seeing was decent. Transparency was good. But the wind was rather rough. AR2786 still has a gorgeous big spot and lots of wonderful mottling, fibrils and filaments around its area. B&W: Colored: Seeing Conditions: Equipment: 120mm F10 refractor Baader Red CCD-IR Block (internal D-ERF) + PST Etalon + 10mm BF + ASI290MM Baader Blue CCD-IR Block (internal D-ERF) + Lunt B1200 CaK + ASI290MM ST80 + SM60/Lunt CaK/Baader Continuum + IMX183 for discs Very best,

Hey all, Seeing was a little better today, saw some sub-arc-second moments so I figured I'd gamble with the 8" and managed to get some data to present. AR2786 has a great plage and mottling going on with filaments like spider legs everywhere, lovely activity going on. A light bridge is forming so it's likely getting ready to start it's decay process, but it should still likely make the full transit of the face of the disc for us with it's gorgeous penumbra. Captured the photosphere in red wavelength and the chromosphere in HA. Playing it safe, I also did some captures with the 150mm refractor in case things didn't work out and to get a wider FOV to include AR2785. Seeing Conditions: Equipment: C8 Edge HD | 150mm F8 Refractor Full Aperture D-ERF (Primary D-ERF) Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter (2nd D-ERF) PST Etalon + 10mm BF Photosphere via D-ERF's and ND3.0 ASI290MM Camera Very best,

Hey all, AR2786 is still kicking up some great dust, well, plasma! Lots of surge prominences going on and some minor flaring, and some new proms have developed around the eastern limb. AR2785 is still towing it along and making a great pair. You can see AR2786's companion pore trailing it ever so slightly in the photosphere, looks like a neat dipole. Seeing was average to poor, was around 1.1 to 1.6 arc-seconds all morning unfortunately, so stayed in the 120mm aperture range. Wasn't able to get calcium at this scale in this seeing conditions unfortunately, had to stay in the red ranges. AR2786 has some gnarly plasma fingers going into it's nice big spot with a great big penumbra. B&W: Color: Seeing Conditions: Equipment: 120mm F10 Refractor Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter (Internal 2" D-ERF) PST Etalon + 10mm HA BF (HA) + ASI290MM camera 10mm HA BF (WL) + ASI290MM camera Very best,

Heya, Tonight's 67% illuminated waxing gibbous in 0.25"/pixel 455 meters per pixel resolution. Please see Astrobin link for full resolution: Detail panels of the above disc: Equipment: 200mm F10 520nm Green Filter ASI183MM Camera 4.5 / 5 seeing Very best,

Hey all, Woke up to a non-cloudy day, rare for me lately with the storms. Anyhow, took a chance on the seeing and it was poor to average so worked with the 120mm aperture. AR2783 persists and is still an interesting region, but AR2785 and it's neighboring new big spot has taken the show! There's a nice hedge prominence near by and big filament under it, along with small surge prominences shooting up from the region. But most interesting is the faint looping prominence over the region! B&W: Colored: Equipment: 120mm F10 Refractor 80mm F7.5 Refractor Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter (Primary internal 50mm DERF) PST Etalon (HA) Lunt B1200 CaK (CaK) 10mm HA BF (HA & WL) ASI183MM Camera ASI290MM Camera Very best,

Heya, Got a small window this afternoon, in poor seeing, to take a look at AR2783 and an arching prominence. Clouds took over quickly, but it was nice to see something for a change other than rain. B&W: Colored: Earth Scale: Equipment: 120mm F10 refractor Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter (primary internal 50mm D-ERF) PST Etalon + 10mm Blocking Filter ASI290MM Camera Very best,

Heya, Well, after over 32 named storms, the latest one just yesterday was a category 5 hurricane (Iota) that skipped past Florida and plowed into Nicaragua and that area, again, poor souls. Just before that, hurricane Eta hit my area directly, but thankfully calmed to a tropical storm rapidly and didn't do anything but cause rain for days. My weather has been awful this year, very little chance to do anything with the sky. Today however was clear and our temperatures dropped into the 50's (F) which is "chilly" for Florida. When it suddenly gets chilly, the seeing is usually bad as there's two large pressure areas pushing on each other making turbulence and wind. Hopefully we're done with storms, but every week we're getting at least 1 or 2 major storms here near the Gulf of Mexico. I went for a smaller aperture, 120mm, to even attempt to take a look. Seeing was poor for sure, but fast FPS and lucky imaging prevails. Took at look at the remnants of AR2782's plages in HA and CaK, and you can see the full spot of AR2783 coming around the limb right now, it is large enough to have a visible umbra & penumbra and appears to be another cycle 25 region. It's tossing some interesting little surge prominences out as it rounds the limb. B&W: Colored: Equipment: 120mm F10 masked achromatic doublet 2" Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter as internal primary D-ERF for HA 2" Baader Blue CCD-IR Block Filter as internal primary D-ERF for CaK PST etalon + 10mm BF for HA Lunt CaK 12mm module for CaK ASI290MM Camera Very best,

Hey all, It has been a hot minute since I've been able to do much or see much due to terrible storms this year, non-stop hurricanes and tropical storms, to the point of exhausting the greek alphabet and hit a total of 27 storms in just a short season. So I think it's been 2 solid months since I've been able to do anything astronomy related other than quick peaks from a small setup at night. Storms are still happening, so this morning was a fluke. My laptop was limping along after a few spills on the keyboard so I had to do a work around with a desktop for a while and it's significantly slower on the USB bus, so that's the next thing to work on is replacing it. It's always something! AR2778 is a fairly interesting region with a nice sunspot. Nice pores and umbra and visible umbra. It appears to be a class D sunspot (please correct me if this is not correct!). It actively flared while imaging this morning and it was changing rather rapidly with all the activity which is a nice change of pace. I didn't have much time due to incoming stormy weather and my seeing was not superb with the moisture, so barely average and not supportive of my image scale, so this image series is lower resolution than it could have been. Seeing conditions went sub-arc sometimes but mostly stayed over an arc-second so I would have had more success with a smaller aperture but there was no time to swap it all out and start again with incoming weather. Still a very interesting region! B&W: Colored: Seeing Conditions: Unsupportive of resolution potential of the C8 this morning, but had no time. Hovered just over an arc-second. Should have used 120mm~150mm. Equipment: C8 Edge + full aperture D-ERF (Primary D-ERF) HA Filter Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter (2nd D-ERF and WL imaging filter) ASI290MM camera Very best,

Hey all, I've not been able to do much for months, this nasty stormy weather from the gulf around Florida and exhausting amount of tropical storms and hurricanes this year. Anyhow, nothing special, but figured I'd share. We had a cloudy evening but was able to get a little sky time. My daughter (7) and I were looking at the solar system bodies in our sky tonight, including Jupiter, Saturn, the moon and finally Mars. We were able to observe mars for a while and finally I captured a little data on it in color to give us a reference frame to what we observed. We observed in a few different scope types and apertures to compare things. Seeing was average, so decent, but not as superb as it could be for Florida's typical evenings. Surprisingly we were able to see the ice cap in as small as an 80mm aperture. Our best view came from the C8 Edge with binoviewers. C8 Edge HD Meade 2x (2.5x really) triplet telenegative amplifier ASI224MC Seeing 3/5 Best 50% of 22k frames My daughter's sketch of Mars from the C8 visually observed: Last night's setup: Very best,

Heya, Today was a First Quarter phase, depending how close you are you can capture the Lunar V & X features (crater rims) illuminated at the terminator at different points through the phase. I had a sucker hole between clouds and was able to get it at 53% illumination. Visually it was fun to see as the "X" feature was floating in darkness at this illumination. The following disc is a high resolution mosaic, please feel free to see the full scale version on my Flickr or Astrobin. The resolution is 426 meters per pixel represented. Seeing was average, so I captured the data in 742nm IR wavelength. Lunar V feature: Lunar X feature: Vallis Alpes, Aristoteles and Eudoxus with the Montes Caucasus: Full Disc (this is a thumbnail, the full res is 8500 x 5100): Astrobin link for full resolution (link) C8 Edge HD SCT (200mm F10) ASI183MM CMOS camera 742nm IR filter Very best,

Heya, I had but a single sucker hole between clouds this morning, there was to be no longer session today. So I gathered what I could of limb spicules with an interesting arching prominence group to show the fuzzy limb of our dyanmic star in HA! Featured on SpaceWeather today: https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=14&month=08&year=2020 Very best,

Heya, It's already cloudy and thundering, but this morning I was able to at least take a glimpse at our lovely satellite Luna at 33% waning crescent phase which highlights the jagged ridges of Sinus Iridum and shows the war like basin within Mare Humorum. This data was captured in infrared 742nm during day light under fair seeing conditions for the image scale. The resolution is approximately 447 meters per pixel. If interested, the full resolution image (8100 x 4300 pixels) is available on my Astrobin: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Examples of the resolution from the full disc mosaic: Mare Humorum (one of my favorite features is the Rimae Hippalus that looks like a giant claw gnash) LunarDisc_Details_01_08132020 by Martin Wise, on Flickr Sinus Iridum (the shadows on the north of the structure are jagged and sharp showing the peaks and ridges that it's not smooth but rather course) LunarDisc_Details_02_08132020 by Martin Wise, on Flickr Full disc mosaic: LunarDisc_Mosaic_33p_WaningCrescent_200mmF10_290MM_401frames_742nm_447metresperpixel_BW_08132020 by Martin Wise, on Flickr +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ C8 Edge HD SCT ASI183mm Monochrome Camera 742nm IR filter Very best,

Super Mike! Very best,

Heya, Took some data on a 71% illuminated waxing gibbous this morning during the day light hours, under lesser seeing conditions, to create a high res mosaic of the lunar disc at 610nm wavelength, sampled at 0.3"/pixel, and given a 463 meter per pixel resolution. Examples of the resolution within this mosaic: Aristoteles & Eudoxus with surface debris Hadley Rille (Apollo 15 site) Full Disc Mosaic: Astrobin Full Resolution: Flickr version: LunarDisc_71p_WaningGibbous_Mosaic_200mmF10_610nm_101frames_B&W_08092020 by Martin Wise, on Flickr Merely 101 frames of only 500 stacked each panel (hence a bit of noise). C8 Edge HD + Baader 610nm filter + ASI183MM Very best,

Hey all, The sky was relatively clear this morning so I was able to take a look at AR's 2770 with its spot & light bridge, 2769 with its filament and 2768 as it rounds the limb with lots of mottling still. I managed to get some high res data with the 200mm with pretty good seeing. Clouds rolled in fast, so sadly the rest is courser scale and I was slightly off focus for the photosphere image of 2770's spot and cells. Managed some discs in HA, CaK & WL (610nm) with a smaller 80mm refractor for comparison. B&W: Colored: Trifecta of Discs: Seeing Conditions: Equipment: C8 Edge HD + Aries 214mm TriBand D-ERF + Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter 2nd D-ERF + Coronado 1A PST Etalon + 10mm BF + ASI290MM (HA) + Baader 610nm + Baader ND3.0 + ASI290MM (WL) ED80 Frac + Solarmax 60 II + 1A PST Etalon + 10mm BF + ASI290MM (HA disc) + Baader 610nm + Baader ND3.0 + ASI183MM (WL Disc) + Lunt B1200 CaK Filter + ASI183MM (CaK Disc) Very best,