Sunday Sun - any luck?

[Luke]

Anyone having much luck on the Sun today? No joy here yet, there is a ton of cloud our way. I see from SDO that the new spots I ordered from FLO have arrived, and they look to be a good size   I would love to get a look at these new arrivals today in white light. The gear is out, covered for April showers and ready to tug off if there are a few gaps.

[Mark_C]

The Sun keeps appearing in and out of the clouds here in NE Wales. Looks like it will get cloudier as the day progresses though. Managed to get some viewing time this morning though, so that's something at least!

[Sarah]

Anyone having much luck on the Sun today? No joy here yet, there is a ton of cloud our way. I see from SDO that the new spots I ordered from FLO have arrived, and they look to be a good size   I would love to get a look at these new arrivals today in white light. The gear is out, covered for April showers and ready to tug off if there are a few gaps.

Shame you forgot to order the blue sky, when you ordered those new spots!

[Umbraldot]

The Sun was out about an hour ago and true to form it clouded up the second I got the scopes out.

I see that the short filament with plage seen yesterday has developed into a new sunspot group in the NW quadrant. Also a decent spot over the E limb according to SOHO.

Maybe I'll get a shot later, but the forecast is rain this afternoon

[Pig]

I had a very late night observing last night Luke and as a result I have only just awoke   It does look bright outside though

I will get out of bed soon and go and check the cloud situation, the little man that's sits on my roof top seems to think it will be ok from midday. I find his predictions are more consistent than the weather forecast

[Umbraldot]

Looking at SOHO just now and there's more to that new sunspot on the E limb, looks like a promising bipolar group. Also a smaller single penumbral sunspot to the north. Wish the clouds would play ball and push off!

[JemC]

Just had a quick look at the sun with my binoculars, good for about 20sec before cloud blocks it   (a lot of cloud here in Lancashire) can only see the one sun spot in the lower section (not sure if this has a name  ) still 20 sec is better than nothing I suppose

[Luke]

Nice one, JemC, I can confirm that it is indeed better than nothing   I have not yet given up hope. Those new spots need to be seen

[Steve Ward]

Bright blue here Luke , but the seeing's pants now ... 

It's heading your way according to Sat24 , just hope the atmosphere steadies up before it gets there.

[Pig]

I am having some luck now Luke, just enjoying a lovely people patch   Some lovely surface granulation and plage and there are some nice smaller proms dotted around the 6, 8 & 12 O'clock positions, the two biggest are 2 O'clock and 5 O'clock positions.

A couple of large sunspots have also appeared around the 2 O'clock position

Hopefully the clear skies are heading your way Luke

[Moonshane]

I did some sketching between the clouds

[Sarah]

Bright blue here Luke , but the seeing's pants now ... 

It's heading your way according to Sat24 , just hope the atmosphere steadies up before it gets there.

  

 Hopefully the clear skies are heading your way Luke

It did clear for us, at around 5.15 pm for a bit, although it was a bit patchy in places. I got some views in so I am happy!

Sarah

[Luke]

Thanks, Steve and Shaun, for sending the clear sky over   The seeing was not too bad, all in all.

It was a long old wait, but worth it in the end. The seeing did start off a bit ropey, with fine ripples around the edge of the disc in white light. But the view still snapped into focus now and again, with granulation coming into view with our ED100 and brand spanking new Lunt 1.25 wedge (Sarah now has her own one after I pinched our shared one to cart off to work for solar lunch - the idea was she could use the Baader 2 inch, but that's a bit clunky and heavy in comparison and is proving to be a bit of a pain to keep changing the ND filter and camera adapter to toggle between visual and imaging use - now we'll keep it ready to go for imaging).

My main focus in white light was the new spots. The big one and a smaller one closer to the edge in AR2049 were connected by bright plage. The plage made the area looked charged with energy, a bit like lightning bolts forking between them! I hope this AR is going to keep us entertained over the coming week.

In H-alpha, two things stood out for me. One was that although there was no mega prom, there were a bunch of interesting small proms around a lot of the disc, and a tortoise-shaped prom that I first saw yesterday afternoon was still hanging about! Talk about a slow mover

I switched between my imaging and visual setup a bit. I could see a small dot of a detached prom quite clearly with the imaging setup. It was there, but faint, at the eyepiece. On the lappy screen, I could see a magnificent little scorpion tail-like prom arched over in one area. But it proved most elusive at the eyepiece. I only noticed it on the lappy screen after really cranking up the gamma and gain to check if I had cropped out any faint proms while imaging.

And there were some really good filaments too that looked brilliant at the eyepiece. One very wide one was shaped like a chilli, and not far from it was another long, much thinner filament. Both filaments must have been about 10 times + the diameter of Earth each. I really do think we need a special solar eyepiece that shows Earth to scale direct in the view

So not bad for a late show. The Sun can be a bit of a pain hanging around waiting for, but then you don't need too long at the eyepiece once you get a look-in to appreciate the spectacular views on offer. I hope most solar folks caught some rays today.

[Pig]

Excellent day in the end, the little man on the roof got the time wrong but the conditions right

Lovely report Luke.

I am glad the pair of you got some of them lovely rays in the end. Every little helps

Do you find the closer to sunset the granulation detail has more intensity to it ?

[Luke]

Oops, I meant facculae not plage

That little man sounds better than Met Office, Shaun, maybe FLO could sell similar devices?

I've not noticed that about the granulation. Though play was suspended by about 7pm due to a chimney pot/roof combo. Would that have been too early?

Excellent day in the end, the little man on the roof got the time wrong but the conditions right

Lovely report Luke.

I am glad the pair of you got some of them lovely rays in the end. Every little helps

Do you find the closer to sunset the granulation detail has more intensity to it ?

[Pig]

Luke, 7pm would have been fine, I  finished at 6:30

[Luke]

Thanks, Shaun, I'll keep an eye out for that next time.

PS Great pics, Shane