Heads Up!! WL Active region rotating into view!

[Highburymark]

1 hour ago, Littleguy80 said:

I've had a couple more looks. It seems to have moved round quite a bit over the course of the day. I initially couldn't find it just now because I was looking closer to the limb. Seeing isn't great here. One large spot and one small spot still. I thought I was seeing a different region, for want of a better description, on the leading edge of the larger spot but it didn't appear separated from the main spot as far as I could tell.

This may be a question for another thread, but do binoviewers make much difference to the detail you can see? Knowing you use binoviewers, I was wondering if seeing the "cell like" granulation would come more easily with binoviewers or if it's simply a question of aperture?

I seem to have a slightly different reaction to binoviewing the sun. I don’t think binoviewers show me more detail than a single eyepiece. In fact sometimes less. In solar ha, proms are easier to see with one eye in my experience. What binoviewers do is slightly darken the image, and make viewing much more comfortable, but I don’t get the transformative detail difference that many other users report.

[Stu]

43 minutes ago, AdeKing said:

I've had a quick look with the little ZS66 and to my eyes at one glance it looked like the larger spot was split into two pieces, with a separate small spot  diagonally away from it towards the limb. 

Then next glance it seemed to be just one large spot and one smaller spot diagonally away from it towards the limb.

Seeing wasn't great so it may have been playing tricks on my eyes, but glad that I'm not the only one that was seeing a suggestion of the large spot splitting.

Ade

 

There were four earlier on Ade, so I’m sure it probably was still slightly separated but needed better seeing to split them later on.

[Stu]

2 hours ago, Littleguy80 said:

I've had a couple more looks. It seems to have moved round quite a bit over the course of the day. I initially couldn't find it just now because I was looking closer to the limb. Seeing isn't great here. One large spot and one small spot still. I thought I was seeing a different region, for want of a better description, on the leading edge of the larger spot but it didn't appear separated from the main spot as far as I could tell.

This may be a question for another thread, but do binoviewers make much difference to the detail you can see? Knowing you use binoviewers, I was wondering if seeing the "cell like" granulation would come more easily with binoviewers or if it's simply a question of aperture?

That’s the effect of the sun rotating across the sky I think  Neil, a bit like field rotation effectively so features appear to move as it crosses the sky but in reality it is the disk   rotating with respect to us. Hopefully these snaps show it correctly, just after sunrise, at transit and just before sunset.

I am probably with Mark on the binoviewers. I use them to reduce floaters and improve relaxed viewing rather than necessarily for seeing more. I think I would probably see the same detail with cyclops but now exclusively binoview when solar observing both in White light and Ha. When seeing is excellent and you can use high powers, say up at x200 then you can really see the granulation cells and watch them evolving over tens of minutes. Not often you get conditions that allow it but it is excellent when you do.

[Littleguy80]

Thanks Stu. I hadn’t considered that at all for the shifting position. Every day’s a school day!  I’ll keep experimenting with eyepieces for the granulation. I do have some floaters so binoviewers may prove worthwhile investment further down the road. 

[astro_al]

9 hours ago, Stu said:

The larger of the two spots splits into two with the right conditions,

I noticed this also.

Managed three short sessions today with the 60mm. The most activity I have seen since buying the Herschel wedge.   

[Stu]

It has changed again this morning. Three spots. The centre one small, round and dark. Left hand one seems elongated with a horizontal split on the right hand side. Right hand one is a bit more diffuse, darker on the left and lighter in the right but may even be separate spots, couldn’t tell in the poor seeing down low.

[Stu]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

It has changed again this morning. Three spots. The centre one small, round and dark. Left hand one seems elongated with a horizontal split on the right hand side. Right hand one is a bit more diffuse, darker on the left and lighter in the right but may even be separate spots, couldn’t tell in the poor seeing down low.

Seems quite dynamic, plenty of change even in relatively short time periods. There is also a tiny pore in amongst the faculae nearby which shows at high power. Wish the seeing would settle down though.

[Size9Hex]

Thanks for the heads up. No opportunity to see this yet. Hopefully it’ll be with us for a few more days to give a chance for the clouds to clear. Been ages since I last saw a sunspot and they’ve been less and less frequent in the few years I’ve been observing. Isn’t the new cycle predicted to start sometime around now-ish?

[Stu]

1 hour ago, Size9Hex said:

Isn’t the new cycle predicted to start sometime around now-ish?

I think this one is supposed to be the fourth AR of the new cycle. Hope it is still around at the weekend, forecast looks poor until then. Should be I think.

[astro_al]

I had a look at around 8:30am this morning with the 60mm. Seeing was good. I could see what looked like two groups. The top group was clearly spit into three in a tight triangle, with the bottom pair very black and the top one less so, maybe a pore? The bottom group could have just been a single spot but I could see a bright area in the center so may have been multiple but out of the reach of the 60mm.

Checked online just now and it looks completely different! Amazing how quickly it changes.

[Stu]

1 minute ago, astro_al said:

Checked online just now and it looks completely different! Amazing how quickly it changes.

Yes, it is changing very rapidly, quite an interesting area.

[Stu]

Had another quick peek this morning, it has changed again. Two larger spots, with a smaller one in between and a little lower. Almost looks like two eyes and a nose 😉. The left spot is split in two, and the right one has a darker area to the left side and another to the bottom right with the rest a lighter shade. There remains a small pore further away amongst the faculae.

The granulation is forming quite a distinct pattern around the spots which shows more of the extent of the AR I guess.

[Mark at Beaufort]

Thanks Stu - mostly cloudy here but I will get the scopes out just in case.

[Littleguy80]

Got a couple of looks in today but with a fair amount of cloud dodging. Saw the three spots quite nicely. Spent awhile getting my Nagler zoom to focus with my Baader VIP. It took a level of fiddling with adapters that would have made Stu proud. Not sure exactly how much mag I was getting but must have been over 200x. I was impressed that I could do that with an 80mm scope. There seemed to be a lot more going on in terms of granulation at the higher magnifications. I just wish the seeing had been a bit better. Tomorrow looks clear so will be able to test this setup some more. 

[AdeKing]

8 hours ago, Stu said:

Had another quick peek this morning, it has changed again. Two larger spots, with a smaller one in between and a little lower. Almost looks like two eyes and a nose 😉. The left spot is split in two, and the right one has a darker area to the left side and another to the bottom right with the rest a lighter shade. There remains a small pore further away amongst the faculae.

The granulation is forming quite a distinct pattern around the spots which shows more of the extent of the AR I guess.

I haven't had a chance to observe it myself today, but have been watching it evolve on Helioviewer.

[Stu]

44 minutes ago, AdeKing said:

I haven't had a chance to observe it myself today, but have been watching it evolve on Helioviewer.

This is a cropped and tweaked shot off 'The Sun Now' app which looks similar to how I last saw it earlier today. Missed a chance just before it went behind the houses this evening. Re reading my description I think it matches well although the left hand spot seems to have combined.

The red circle is around a small pore which is more obvious through the eyepiece, generally the view was sharper when seeing settled as is often the case.

[Littleguy80]

I've had another look at the AR this morning. Stu's sunspot face has taken a sinister turn! There are 3 spots still. One large which is stretched below the other two forming a slightly down turned mouth. The spots above forming the eyes with the left eye being slightly larger. Looks like an evil face from Mario or something like that. The pore highlighted above is quite clear. 

Following up on my Nagler/Baader VIP Barlow experiment. I calculated the magnification factor at 1.77x. I can't be totally certain as I don't know where the field stop is on the Nagler zoom. If that calculation is correct then the 6mm setting should be the same magnification at Vixen HR 3.4mm. Field test showed it was similar but maybe a little less on the Nagler/VIP combo. There's a slight difference in TFOV between the two. Even allowing a little for error the 4mm and 3mm are both over 200x magnification. This was backed up by the view. The granulation was much clearer. The only issue was a bit of wobble from the breeze. Very happy to have glimpsed some proper granulation though.

[John]

Nice little area of activity this, though small. I've just taken a peek with my Vixen ED102 and the Lunt HW. Not steady seeing currently so around 90x is as much as I can usefully use. Novelty to actually see a feature in WL !

 

[Stu]

34 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

I've had another look at the AR this morning. Stu's sunspot face has taken a sinister turn! There are 3 spots still. One large which is stretched below the other two forming a slightly down turned mouth. The spots above forming the eyes with the left eye being slightly larger. Looks like an evil face from Mario or something like that. The pore highlighted above is quite clear. 

Following up on my Nagler/Baader VIP Barlow experiment. I calculated the magnification factor at 1.77x. I can't be totally certain as I don't know where the field stop is on the Nagler zoom. If that calculation is correct then the 6mm setting should be the same magnification at Vixen HR 3.4mm. Field test showed it was similar but maybe a little less on the Nagler/VIP combo. There's a slight difference in TFOV between the two. Even allowing a little for error the 4mm and 3mm are both over 200x magnification. This was backed up by the view. The granulation was much clearer. The only issue was a bit of wobble from the breeze. Very happy to have glimpsed some proper granulation though.

Thanks Neil, cloudy here so no chance to have a look. This is how it has changed on my app image.

[Littleguy80]

Thanks Stu. Here’s the face as I saw from your image above.

. 

[Stu]

More activity this morning. The little pore has grown into a spot and found a friend. So we have a group of three and a group of two. The two seem to be in a fairly dense patch of granulation so maybe more will form.

[Littleguy80]

Was playing around with taking pictures of it this morning. Bit of false colour added for effect. Full disclosure with 9mm BGO and close up with Vixen HR 3.4mm

[Alan White]

8 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

Was playing around with taking pictures of it this morning. Bit of false colour added for effect. Full disclosure with 9mm BGO and close up with Vixen HR 3.4mm

This is what I have just been looking at Neil, so thanks for the images to refer to.
If the gap between both areas is distance A.
Have a look at 4 x A distance 110 degrees, observing this area, I have convinced myself something else is showing???
What do folks think from observing themselves, I am sure it's not a floater.
I will mark up Neils image in a minute.
 

[Alan White]

Image 

[Stu]

Will have a look Alan. I think there are dense patches of granulation which can catch your eye at times, but aren’t necessarily spots. Seeing not great here but I’ll have a try