IB20

This is superb, many thanks for this resource.

Great stuff, AR3363 is a real monster. I had some dog seeing this morning but it was still mighty impressive, showing a slight Wilson effect in the PST too. Plenty of faculae visible around the sunspot region and on occasion I saw lovely detail irradiating from the umbral centre. Granulation was somewhat washed out with the breeze though. I left the PST out all day and around 5-6pm noticed how clear the surface detail looked around then so the seeing certainly improved. Really looking forward to monitoring 3363 over the next few days, such a great time to be solar nerds!

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Very nice purchases; the 15mm BST is an exceptional eyepiece. You’re going to have a lot of fun with that scope. Not long for the gas giants too. 😃

Had a morning of white light solar and did a little comparison. I will caveat this with that atmospheric blurring and turbulence played their part throughout the morning, seeing isn’t great! Both 76Q and 102ed-r looked really sharp at 95 & 102x respectively; both through XWs with the 7.5nm continuum filter - I couldn’t really tell them apart. The absolutely huge sunspot AR3363 at the solar limb looks astonishing, plenty of surrounding faculae and at high 238.5x on the Tak, showed beautiful umbral spindles on odd occasions. I couldn’t quite get the Starwave to support much higher mags than 102x; it never quite reached the views of the Tak but it is quite breezy and there are heat plumes in my local environment when not windy. I was reading about atmospheric blurring and resolution last night and it’s something I’m experiencing more with larger apertures, the 76mm isn’t impervious to it but certainly seems to cope with poorer or sub-optimal conditions better! So a small win for the Tak, hopefully there’ll be opportunity to do this again when the seeing is better but it’s immaterial today as both scopes have lost out to the might PST Coronado. 😅

Very impressive! It’s certainly got me thinking!

As it’s quite windy and Venus is approaching my neighbouring rooftops, I thought I’d have a quick glance at the planet through my 15 x 70 bins. Not expecting much, other than a bright point of light with some CA, I was pretty taken aback with how clearly the crescent phase was showing. Obviously it wasn’t as stable an image as through a scope, (perhaps I need IS binos…) but it was still a great sight. I don’t know why I’ve never tried bins before, I always just reached for my g’n’g scope first. This gives me great opportunity to track Venus’ phase when it’s at lower altitude and becomes out of reach with a scope for the remainder of this apparition.

Superb work, I was watching that huge wide prominence for most of yesterday. The energies involved in these must be enormous!

Puts a smile on my face looking through it or looking at it.

All today, in between the breeze and cloud, I have been out sun worshipping with the Coronado PST. There are several large proms to catch the eye but one in particular seems to be jettisoning off huge amounts of plasma into space that seemingly is suspended in the sun’s gravitational field, such is the time scale of the event. It’s pretty hard for me to comprehend the sheer scale of these large prominences and the massive amounts of energy that must be involved. The sun really is a fascinating object to observe, particularly with its current activity. Some events seem to go on for days yet some can be over within 20 minutes. It’s great to be able to throw a solar scope outside and just periodically check in on what’s going on. Keeps the Astro bug well and truly alive through these light nights.

Solar action in abundance; filaments, proms, sun spots and faculae galore! WL through the Tak 76Q & 10mm XW and Solar Ha through the PST & 11mm TV plössl. Afocal images captured on ProCamera on iPhone 14 Pro and processed in LR.

A night of two crescents. Seeing is really quite wobbly but there were still splendid lunar views on offer, particularly around Fabricius (looking a bit like a clown’s face!) and the large gouge of Vallis Rheita. Venus getting ever slimmer but its hard to make out any cloud or contrast detail as it loses altitude and heads towards the rooftops.

Wonderful sketches Malcolm. Pretty much exactly what I saw last night with the 4mm TOE. Nice to have my observations corroborated!

Not quite daylight but I have just been observing Venus in the lightest conditions this season and for the first time I could see irregular shaped darker areas close to the terminator. Not too dissimilar to Mike’s sketch where darker patches extended from the terminator region into the remaining lit part of the planetary disc. Amazing!

Venus is looking splendid now it is showing less than 50% phase. Strikingly beautiful, for the first time I have seen some irregular shaped contrast around the terminator which is a thrill. Again using the Tak 76Q as it seems to handle Venus with such ease.

It was actually reports from yourself and @Highburymark that has taken me down the TV plossl road for Ha, so thanks! 👍🏻

More glass for the PST. Many thanks to @wookie1965 👌🏻.

Had no idea it was called that; I have seen it on numerous occasions where a sunspot on the limb gives an appearance like it’s depressed into the surface. Every days a school day on here! 😃

Definitely showing more surface detail with the TV plossl although I do need to pull it out the focuser a touch to reach focus. Image shot @20x on iPhone Pro 14 and exposure tweaked on Adobe LS.

A lovely piece of black and green courtesy of @Lurcher. Read good things about TV plossls for Ha work, of course the cloud has set in!

When I take my toddler toy shopping it makes me wince to see the worst kind of tat telescopes being sold. These sorts of optical lemons would put an interested child off for life.

Extremely bright flares just kicked off around AR3323; intensity has died down after 10 or so mins since I first saw it. Spaceweather recording it as C class.

Terra satellite and H-IIA rocket body were both up around that time.

A brilliant looking Venus through the Tak 76Q. Venusian horns appear to be protruding slightly and some varying shadows and contrast along the terminator. Some slight red and blue fringing but no visible CA, incredibly impressive control from the little Tak. 3 second video stacked through Videostack app (thanks @PeterStudz)

Tak time for Venus, it’s been too long. 😋