White light activity: 30-07-2020

[John]

Two active regions on the solar disk at the moment and both have produced sunspots.

AR12767 has a nice spot associated with it showing a well defined penumbra and a reasonably complex umbra structure.

AR12768 has a small dark spot but rather nice faculae complex nearby, towards the solar limb.

Well worth a look

I'm using a 90mm F/11 achromat refractor today with a Lunt 1.25" Herschel Wedge and a 7.2mm - 21.5mm zoom eyepiece fitted with a single polarising filter.

Views are clear and stable up to around 100x-120x.

Here is a solarmonitor.org white light image from this morning:

[John]

Closer inspection of AR12768 reveals a split umbra but little or no penumbra.

 

 

[AdeKing]

Thanks for flagging this @John I had completely missed AR12768 when I was viewing, but now I've pinpointed it I can clearly see the split umbra at about 50x with my ZS66 and Cool Ceramic wedge.

Lovely trail of snaking faculae extending out to the limb too.

[Mark at Beaufort]

Must have a look later with the 150P Newt. Certainly there is a lot of activity in Ha at the moment. John I did not appreciate you had a f/11 achromatic frac. I keep saying I must buy a frac and thought an achromatic was a possible way forward.

[John]

34 minutes ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

...John I did not appreciate you had a f/11 achromatic frac....

I didn't really intend to get one Mark but I can't resist a bargain, unfortunately

 

 

[Stu]

Nice views here at up to x200. The seeing is quite variable but in the good moments there is some very good detail. Quite complex detail in the umbra on the main spot, and petal like structures in the penumbra. Also there were a couple of very small pores dotted around.

The split in the small spot is obvious, and there is lovely swirling detail in the granulation around it, plus one small pore and perhaps two others although that might just have been tight knots in the granulation. The faculae is lovely, you can almost see the 3D aspect of it as indented through the top layer in to the brighter areas underneath, really nice. Wish the seeing was a bit better but still worth a look.

[Highburymark]

Nice report John and sounds like the new scope is perfect for WL. Look forward to seeing some pics.
And speaking of seeing,  this afternoon was the worst I’ve experienced in six years of solar observing. Only solution is to get out there reasonably early. Lesson learnt for tomorrow.

[Davey-T]

3 hours ago, Highburymark said:

And speaking of seeing,  this afternoon was the worst I’ve experienced in six years of solar observing.

Started imaging about 11.30 and thought it was bad but went rapidly downhill, much like yesterday, unfortunately due to circumstances I can't really start early.

Dave