July 4, 2012: Lovely views in H-alpha

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Yesterday afternoon after work I had a chance to relax in the garden, when at 5:15 the sky cleared quite suddenly. I quickly set up the little Lunt LS35 and started observing. As is my habit, I rotated the diagonal to align with the declination axis, so that top is north. I used the XF8.5mm EP (47x) throughout.

Initially just a few prominences showed, but as I tuned the etalon, the image changed quite dramatically. Quite a few prominences showed on the rim, and a lot of structure appeared on the disk. To the upper left I spotted a bright snake-like feature some distance below a sunspot. Initially it was quite bright, but in the space of 30 minutes or so it dimmed considerably. Two other striking features were to the lower right, and looked like dark flame-like structures, like prominences back-lit by the sun's surface. A more diffuse, almost cloud like dark structure was visible toward the lower edge of the disk. Finally, a fine group of sunspots was visible to the left, south of the equator. Very many bright and dark filaments were visible between and around these spots. The missus was also impressed by the view, even though it took here a while to get used to the narrow exit pupil.

A neat little bonus was seeing some swallows and swifts dart across the sun.