H-alpha 1st - 10th May: Sketches & Report

[Qualia]

The Sun started the month relatively quiet and the weather was quite mild, but by the 6th, AR2339 had exploded on the scene and brought with it a host of writhing filaments and rushes of prominences and spicules showering the blackness of space. By Thursday morning temperatures had soared from a mellow 28ºC or so, to quite a warm 35ºC, and as if announcing the beginning of summer, not only had the endlessly changing Sun brought with it this sudden surge of temperature but it was now swaggering across the cloudless blue skies with a beautiful adorenment of proms and dynamic active regions snaking across its disc.

I've only had time to mount the first week or so of solar sketches: 1st to 10th. I missed the 4th and 5th due to work commitments but hopefully they give some idea of what's been going on. I've had problems scanning in the chalk sketches, for the subtlety of such a delicate medium is being lost and I'm ending up with a blurry mess. I've tried my best to convey an impression of the originals but do apologise for their seemingly lack of quality. In the end, after much trial and error, I decided to simply take a snap shot of them and mount them via Gimp. I think it is best to view them, by clicking on the image and hopefully you'll get a little more detail.

This week has been equally impressive and I will try to post up the sketches soon. I'm really looking forward to this morning, for we're being promised temperatures that could rise over 45ºC. That kind of heat is unforgiving; everything heats up in seconds, shoes start to stick to tarmac, the small orthos well up with sweat, you dare not touch the mount and you just cannot imagine what wonders it does for ridding the body of any impurities it may have

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great set. You get much better continuity in solar observing than I can manage with this climate