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9 April - A double spot is born! (Ha)


alanjgreen

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Date: 9 April 2018     Equipment: Lunt LS60 + double stack DS60

Conditions

Conditions are very tricky and tuning (rotating) the double stack to the optimum position took ages. 95% of the action is in the lower half of the solar disk.

Observations

We seem to have a spot on the disk!

The active region from the 5th has moved on and looks to have maybe 4 days left on the disk. There is now an active growing "double" spot with multiple solar flares seen (& continuing now) varying from small dot flares to the whole spot region.

I counted up to 7 pores around the spot.

There are many (between 10 and 20) small filaments in the lower half, most forming an "imaginary" line from left to right.

There is a potential new emerging active region that has come onto the disk in the past 2 days. It is spread out at the moment but contains several filaments, plage and a potential small spot/pore as well.

What we need is a white light view to contrast (anyone)...

Further additional notes...

Conditions are improving. The "spot" is in fact a "double spot"! I see another potential spot/pore just above the double and ANOTHER (third) pore/spot out on its own at 9 o'clock position above the previously mentioned "potential active region". Just need white light to confirm...

 

I'm off for another look...

Alan

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54 minutes ago, alanjgreen said:

Just need white light to confirm...

I’m sorry to say no can do, Alan.

Shoved on the Baader film for a quick look through high haze but no spots visible. Same featureless disc. ??

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10 minutes ago, Floater said:

I’m sorry to say no can do, Alan.

Shoved on the Baader film for a quick look through high haze but no spots visible. Same featureless disc. ??

Can any of these features be seen through a Baader Astrozap filter ? If so , at what sort of magnification ?

PS If you got a big filter for an 8 inch dob would that help in seeing sun spots , etc.

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12 minutes ago, Floater said:

Shoved on the Baader film for a quick look through high haze but no spots visible. Same featureless disc. ??

I nearly jumped out of my chair and then I saw this. Thanks, I can relax and maybe try a bit later.

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1 hour ago, Red Dwarfer said:

Can any of these features be seen through a Baader Astrozap filter ? If so , at what sort of magnification ?

Yep. Sunspots sure. I'm looking at 50x and 90x. (Not an expert. This is only my second sunspot but it's great)

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2 hours ago, Red Dwarfer said:

Can any of these features be seen through a Baader Astrozap filter ? If so , at what sort of magnification ?

PS If you got a big filter for an 8 inch dob would that help in seeing sun spots , etc.

The film provides views in white light - sunspots definitely and some can see granulation (I never have).

I have film for apertures 76, 102 and 150 (Dob). I’m not sure that extra aperture will help except, perhaps, in providing higher resolution. Earlier I was using the film on my grab n’ go 76 (mag 60x) and didn’t pick up anything.

Happy to hear there is something there; sorry I didn’t see it.

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5 hours ago, domstar said:

Oh yes got it. Three small dots (one of them very small). I'm still new to this. It's amazing how they disappear and reappear (conditions I suppose).

Right guys. I’m intrigued. I’ve hunted to find evidence of this spot and cannot.

Spaceweather (glad to see the site back up!) says there is no spot. Other solar monitoring sites also fail to show any evidence, although one has the AR numbered. No way I’m doubting your observation @domstar, just curious as to what you saw and why I didn’t. ??

Seeing conditions may well play a part and perhaps, in time, the spot will develop further.

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12 hours ago, Floater said:

Right guys. I’m intrigued. I’ve hunted to find evidence of this spot and cannot.

Spaceweather (glad to see the site back up!) says there is no spot. Other solar monitoring sites also fail to show any evidence, although one has the AR numbered. No way I’m doubting your observation @domstar, just curious as to what you saw and why I didn’t. ??

Seeing conditions may well play a part and perhaps, in time, the spot will develop further.

You are right, they don't show any spot on helioviewer either.

All I can say, is that I have never seen a region so "changeable ".

There was a spot/pore then a few minutes later definitely two small spots together. At one point it looked like a "slit" shape.

Small spots are hard to tie down in Ha as all the surface detail hides them. Usually I reposition the spot to the top of the FOV away from the sweet spot and as the surface detail disappears, the spots remain and can be seen clearly. 

The spots I saw were visible at the top of the fov (out of the sweet spot) and I used this to identify them as spots.

Every time I went back to the scope the spot/pores configuration seem to have changed, and the flaring was continuous for the whole hour+ that I was watching.

Helioviewer has both of the regions I saw labelled as ( spoca21712, spoca21717 )

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Good info, Alan. Thanks.

I know about the difficulties in relating views in Ha versus those in WL and just recently was surprised to find no visible spot associated with AR2703. I had thought that the two would always go together.

It underlines the adage that there is nothing more dynamic in amateur astronomy than solar viewing.

Hope we get the chance to see more of that activity.  ?

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The seeing was spectacular here. Granulation and everything. The spots did come and go but less so at x50. My daughter had a look and she saw them too. Just black spots without any of the interesting paler shapes around (holes?) that I saw on my only previous sunspot. Can't wait to do it again.

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51 minutes ago, domstar said:

p.s. You guys didn't mention solen.info . Do you use different sites? Why's that? Thankfully, Alan sent a great heads up.

I use

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

(you get to glimpse what's coming around the corner)

 

https://www.helioviewer.org/

(you can set the date and time to replay what you observed)

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