Ha Sun - 15 Nov

[Rob Sellent]

Gorgeous Sun today. Very dynamic and seething with interesting features.

There are three impressive prominences flaming high into the darkness of space. At this hour, there's one about 2 o'clock, another at 5 and a huge series of plasma flames at about 10 o'clock spilling over the sun's limb. 

A faint filament or two can be spotted but what cannot be missed is a very bright patch near the 5 o'clock prom. Curiously, in white light this area reveals not sunspot, so I'm tentatively concluding that it is a huge solar flare blasting enormous amounts of energy into space. 

I'm still getting to grips with the binoviwers and Mark IV zooms for H-alpha viewing. I'm not sure if others have the same effect, namely, that for surface detail the  binos are outstanding but perhaps not as sharp as single eyepieces for picking out fainter spicules, proms and the such. It would be interesting to hear opinions on this.

Anyway, I've made a sketch but for time's sake it'll be easier just to post up an image from Gong to give a good idea of what was viewed today.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Rob Sellent

[Highburymark]

Agree - I find proms are best viewed with a single eyepiece too Rob. Obviously binoviewers provide a slightly dimmer image overall, but this doesn’t seem to hamper surface details/filaments, which really stand out with two eyes. But I almost always observe proms with a single plossl or zoom EP these days.

Glad you had some clear skies today - the UK is fighting flooding at the moment....

[Rob Sellent]

Thanks for the insight, Mark. It's comforting to note you've found similar results with the binos. Although they offer a visual aesthetic single eyepieces cannot match, for h-alpha they are to a degree limiting.

Sorry to hear about the weather. We had our floods a couple of months back but since then it's been almost nonstop clear day and night. Hopefully you guys will get a similar kind of fortune after the rain falls

Edited November 16, 2019 by Rob Sellent

[Floater]

18 hours ago, Rob Sellent said:

We had our floods a couple of months back but since then it's been almost nonstop clear day and night. Hopefully you guys will get a similar kind of fortune after the rain falls

A couple of months clear?!? Never heard of such a thing ... 🤔

[Rob Sellent]

Odd 🤔 In accordance with my own records and those of Meteoblue, in the last 90 days, for example, we've had 67 days of potential solar observing If you've never heard of such a thing,  you have now

Edited November 21, 2019 by Rob Sellent