White Light 5th January

[Qualia]

Yes, I know, I know. I'm boring you guys silly with this run of white light sketches .

I wouldn't normally post up so many, but I've got a two day break (it's Christmas present day in Spain this evening/tomorrow) and rather than having to dash of to work after sketching, I've a little more time to scan them in and yes, bore you

Anyway, another fabulous sun shining day. The seeing wasn't as good as other mornings but there was still a nice bit of activity to observe. AR 2253 is putting on a good display and with the Microguide, I roughly worked out that it's about 172,839km long, or around half the distance from Earth to the Moon

[Davey-T]

Not at all boring but very annoying  as I'm sitting here in fog

Dave

Been three days now

[ghostdance]

That's a great sketch Qualia!

That snaky detail on the right side (sorry, not too hot on technical terms) is bewitching.

I'm intrigued by your use of 3 filters - stacked or sequential?

I doubt that my small set (UHC, OIII and Neodym) will offer much solar-ly, but time to try!

(When and if the clouds finally pick up their heels )

[Moonshane]

Bear in mind that the three filters mentioned are for use with the Lunt wedge not solar film.  The ND3.0 reduces the 5% sunlight allowed through the wedge by a factor of 1000x and gets hit first, the Baader Solar Continuum then reduces the light to one wavelength and the polarizer then changes the contrast to allow more detail. I use the same set-up with my 120mm f5 skywatcher frac. So it is eyepiece>pol filter>baader SC filter>ND3.0 filter>wedge. You don't miss much detail Rob - superb! 

[ghostdance]

Thanks Moonshane I'm only solar film so good to know.

[Moonshane]

you can often/sometimes improve the film view through a narrowband filter like an Oiii or UHC so worth a try?

[ghostdance]

you can often/sometimes improve the film view through a narrowband filter like an Oiii or UHC so worth a try?

On my list to do! Should be interesting to see what effect if any an OIII has (given its narrower pass than a UHC)

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice sketch, Rob. Nice to hear someone got some sun today

[Qualia]

Thank you all for your kind comments. It's really appreciated

Ghostdance, Moonshane is absolutely right. The filter which you must use with the Herschel Wedge is the ND 3.0. The Variable Polariser adjusts the brightness of the Sun (it is often too bright even with the Herschel and ND 3) and is also handy to bring out certain features such as faculae. The Continuum helps enhance sunspot and granulation. For a good while with the solar film, I used a blue and yellow filter to make a green one and found it was very effective. Fortunately, a Continuum eventually cropped up secondhand.

[ghostdance]

Thanks Qualia

I don't have any coloured filters but they're widely available (was tempted by the Orion set in Classifieds) so I may buy some.

The Continuum filter - is that a visual-use one? I'll have to look that up.

[Moonshane]

The continuum is useful for imaging but I am solely visual and it was great with the film I used to use and even better with the wedge I now use. An option as Rob says is a cheap wratten #11 which works well when there's a but of thin cloud too.

Personally in your shoes and assuming you have a refractor of some kind I would put the funds towards a wedge. Solar observing has convinced me that even refractors have a place in astronomy :-)

[Pig]

Excellent sketches  Who needs a solar scope !

[Polar Bear]

Certainly far from boring Rob, keep them coming.

Paul