Kitsunegari

The old massive prominenece from the 15th and 16th, is now a massive filament.   

However, a new contended has taken the massive prominence prize today!

imaged in calcium light

Captured on the 16th..

7 hours ago, Montana said:

They work very well indeed  I wish I had your seeing (and some actual sunshine  )

Alexandra

Living a few feet from a prairie forest does seem to help

9 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Fantastic! also, your SGL name reminds me of X-files episode season 5 episode 8 of same name.

You are correct sir.   Cerulean blue!

Later in the day on the 15th, i used a different camera to capture the giant prominence using the high exposure technique.

High res mp4 file

   (calcium light,  NOT h-alpha.)

today i tried out adding extensions to my luminos 2.5x barlow.    I used 50mm extension increments before the camera.   Did not calculate any field of view or anything, but you can see at the camera what happens in real life.    (basler 1920-155um)

Doing this with a calcium filter focused on the sun, i dont have the skies for night time stuff.    

5x was 200mm of extension on the camera nose.

have not imaged in awhile due to terrible sky conditions.  Sahara desert sand and wildfire smoke has turned my local atmosphere into a rippling  mess.  (yes the sahara desert made it all the way to the central usa!)

I wanted to try out some extended barlow distances today;  so i did.    Test was done using a celestron luminos 2.5x with a basler 1920-155um camera.  I added extensions before the camera in 50mm increments to adjust magnification factor;    I did not spend much effort processing the image's; 

i will attempt to use  6x , 7x and 8x tomorrow.   

6 hours ago, Rusted said:

Turn the lights on and they are easily visible.

The truth is; the hydrogen alpha chromosphere is  500km lower than the  calcium K3 chromosphere, and so there really is a 500km thick fog layer that is obscuring them; so this is wy they appear more diffuse..  

The only solution is to use a k2 filter, that is tuned on the 1500km region that hydrogen alpha 656.28 core layer is.   This "k2 special  filter" would  need a center bandwidth between 393.10nm and 393.25nm; and then the filaments would appear dark and thick as seen in hydrogen alpha.

spectrohelioscope view from paris meudon on july 27th, which is similar to my view.;  this pretty much confirms that we are indeed looking into a "fog" of extra chromosphere; so the filaments are less visible at the K3 core.

200-300 frames total, subtract 90% and stack 10.   Thats all i do.

Triple stacked calcium filter ,  (i do not see any noticeable performance gain in a triple stacked system.; $2000.00 wasted.)

looks like you have a killer quark!

Two of the last few remaining chrotel images online with some calcium filaments visible.

Here is a high resolution view showing the filament in Hydrogen alpha, and Calcium for comparison from chrotel.     Even with university grade equipment , these filaments are very difficult to see.  

Pulled from here https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2016/05/aa26636-15.pdf

8 hours ago, Montana said:

The tighter your bandwidth in the K line the more the filaments will stand out in CaK. If you look at spectroheliograph images in CaK, the filaments stand out as distinct black lines similar to Halpha. They are lines of neutral magnetic field. We can usually never see them as the Lunt and Coronado CaK are not narrow enough. You are obviously getting (but not quite) towards the optimum narrow bandwidth. You should build a spectroheliograph

Alexandra

I believe it is slightly  more complicated than just narrow bandwidth,  and while the 0.1 angstrom spectrohelioscope can see filaments;  it is the  ability to "find" them at a particular region of the chromosphere that makes it special.

IF we all had 0.1 angstrom calcium filters centered at 393.4nm,  we would not see them.    I beleive the same applies if we have a filter centered at 393.39nm, 393.38nm,  and even 393.37nm.      They are seen in a very specific height, much like with blue wing and red wing shifting h-alpha; they disappear.   My system only allows tuning of one filter currently.

As seen from this "chrotel" image,  there is a very thick S-shaped filament, completely invisible to the  0.3 angstrom calcium filter.  

The chrotel system, is very capable of seeing calcium filaments without a doubt; because i have seen several videos where they were very prominent before they were taken offline..  The system uses a "pico-meter  lyot filter" Which is 0.3 angstroms, ; I am positive it is tunable; providing  a greater and more precise method than a lunt pressure tuner, and daystar heater.

The chrotel passpand is 0.3 angstrom and fully tunable, which provides a full image making it better than any spectrohelioscope.

https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2011/10/aa17456-11/F2.html  

https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2011/10/aa17456-11/aa17456-11.html

Anyways, just throwing this information out there because i am 100% convinced we can see them better using very specific technique; which we just have not discovered as amateurs.

My calcium  system is 0.5 angstroms at 393.37nm and i can barely see the filaments that h-alpha presents;  I suspect that these filaments are riding much lower in the chromosphere below 393.36nm.      Sure there are some filaments in my image, but i want them to pop out with a big hello.

I pointed some arrows to the obvious ones,  but the surface area in calcium is just too dark or too high in the fog to see the rest. 

 I always thought filaments were prominences; as are with h-alpha, and i have no problems seeing prominences in calcium light;  so there is something a bit different about them on the surface in UV light.  I am hoping to find the right system setting to make these things less invisible.

3 minutes ago, GreatAttractor said:

What a catch! That would be a "surge", if I'm not mistaken.

Yea i think it is some type of filament surge for sure,   the interesting thing is that it did not appear on SDO; it just looks like two really bright flares;  so this dark eruption is very incredibly rare in calcium light..    

I was focused on this massive prominence, so this is what my exposure was set at.

These dark surges  are very common in H-alpha as seen below;  

First time i have ever seen this recorded in calcium light, and luckily I am the first person to image it!   If you can find it anywhere else, please let me know.

I have monitored solar eruptions for 20 years,  you see this with hydrogen alpha regularly;  and I am very confident when i say that i am the first amateur to ever record this.        

Too bad i was not imaging in high res, this would have been a textbook class capture..

Start(UT)=150059.862

End(UT)=151935.011

6 hours ago, tico said:

Wow, a Celestron Regal Spotting scope like one solar telescope!!! 

indeed it is, i attached a baader planetarium diamond steel track focuser to the back end.    The prism assembly unscrews very easily and the ota has a standard vixen M60 thread that you can attach a baader clicklock 2" adapter to.

awesome!

7 hours ago, Rusted said:

I am not getting access to your high res. videos.

"Code 403 Invalid signature."

try this one ,  

33 minutes ago, NiCo10 said:

That is amazing! I would love to get something like this, truly superb

I treat solar imaging like Fishing.   If your lure is not in the water, you will never catch anything

I just keep the camera rolling and see what i was lucky enough to catch after i run out of harddrive space;    

Patience and persistence is all it takes to get a big one splash,   gong can help "scout" the area's where  "fish" may be.

This one had its Afterburners on   .  Full resolution video file here  https://live.staticflickr.com/video/51325032851/676f0410c5/1080p.mp4?s=eyJpIjo1MTMyNTAzMjg1MSwiZSI6MTYyNjgzMjc5OCwicyI6IjJmZjUwZThjNjkxZTc0ZTg0NWYxNmQ2ODcxZDhiZGMxMTIyM2Q5MGQiLCJ2IjoxfQ