Sol 25/10/17 Plenty of action in Ha

[alanjgreen]

Date: 25/10/17 Time: 1600-1630 Scope: Lunt60+DS60

After what seems like an age, I finally got the chance to pop out and see the sun this afternoon! Must be at least 10 days as the first of the two (new to me) regions is approaching half way (6 day position)

Seeing was poor, I had to fight through some thin clouds - Note that as long as you can see shadows being cast on the ground then you can tune an Ha scope into the sun and get a worthwhile image!

Initial tuning was not easy as the disk was hidden in thin cloud but I managed to tease out the first (larger) active region - once you have something on the disk then its just a case of fiddling with the (1) scope pressure (2) double stack rotation and (3) finally the double stack tilt - if the image improves keep going otherwise reverse the other way.

- in the end, I had teased out quite a lot of detail in the first region, several filaments and plenty of plage plus the spot of course. Several other stand-alone filaments were visible at 7 and 6 o'clock plus some smaller filaments in the centre. Managed to glimpse a nice exiting filament at 10 o'clock too!

Initially, the highlight seemed like it was going to be the prominence formation at the 2 o'clock postion (which was extensive and contained multiple smaller tree proms) BUT then a solar flare started up in the 2nd newer region - it got quite bright and lasted a good 10 minutes so was probably a reasonably powerful event - which became the highlight of the session

If you get chance in the next few days then make the effort for a look, the spots are small but the regions that contains them are reasonably active and there is plenty of other activity across the disk surface to make the effort. The prominence formation was on the coming-in side so maybe there is more to come around the corner?

Alan

[John]

Great report Alan

I was hoping to get my LS50 on the Sun today but my other half insisted on a trip to the countryside and by the time we got back ....... clouds ! 

 

[Moonshane]

Managed a sketch today for first time in ages

 

 

[Floater]

Good report, Alan. Thanks.

The detail about how you used the scope is valuable. Mine is tilt-tuned but I can correlate what’s going on.

I think. ?

Please keep up your input. Much appreciated. ?

p.s. sorry I missed the flare and, after only the briefest session yesterday, I also would have expected the prom to be the show stealer.