JUNE 10TH - PARTIAL SOLAR ECLIPSE UK - SOME SOLAR FILTERS IN SHORT SUPPLY!

[Nigella Bryant]

Thanks I'm really hoping it's clear skies. I'm going to hopefully capture it in HA and CaK.

[Astrobits]

For what it's worth here's my take on solar filter mounting:

The telescope is a GSO 80mm f/5 about 25+ years old. It has a fairly long dew shield which is just over 105mm internal diameter. A piece of 4" PVC pipe fits in with a little space to spare. I blacked the internal surface and stuck some Baader Solar film on one end with sticky tape. This is then put into the dew shield film first. This way there is no way the wind can blow the filter off.

It is important that the filter holder does not fit too tightly in the dew shield so as to allow the filter to slide in and  to be able to remove the filter without blowing the film off the end of the tube.

Final pic is one I took last December with this setup. ( Focus is not perfect.)

Nigel

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by Astrobits

[Peter Drew]

For anyone about to use Baader solar film for the first time, apart from the usual safety recommendations, be aware that the film has an additional protective film attached to it and not particularly obvious.  It needs to be removed before use otherwise it will spoil the image quality.     🙂

[Tiny Clanger]

On 05/05/2021 at 20:14, Peter Drew said:

For anyone about to use Baader solar film for the first time, apart from the usual safety recommendations, be aware that the film has an additional protective film attached to it and not particularly obvious.  It needs to be removed before use otherwise it will spoil the image quality.     🙂

I think they may have changed the packaging , presumably to avoid this : I read the included instructions very carefully when I received mine from FLO last week, no mention of any transparent film to be removed . The mylar arrived sandwiched loosely (i.e not adhering) between an opaque white plastic sheet and a white tissue paper sheet, with instructions printed on another couple of glossy paper sheets within a poly bag.

[Tiny Clanger]

Well, I'd constructed two filters for the ST80 as planned, one a flat card sandwich to be taped in the small cap within the dust cap , the other a substantial 3D effort of photo mount board sandwich to the front, corrugated card collar (courtesy of FLO good packaging on the Baader film 🙂 ) attached by glue and gaffer tape, I'm going for a belt and braces setup ...

Both filters have sat waiting patiently, and when the little solar finder I ordered off Amazn dropped through my letterbox on Saturday, I reckoned I had totally jinxed the weather for at least the next month . But today around elevenses time I saw actual shadows in the back garden, so sprinted out with ST80,  very carefully put the small filter in place , peered at the solar finder (which is a simple pinhole camera type thing) and actually saw the Sun .

Carefully swapped to the whole aperture filter, and looked for a few minutes more. Then the clouds crowded in, but I had managed sharp but apparently featureless views (apart from some limb darkening giving a 3D effect) which I suspect may be down to a lack of sunspots at the moment. I could see obvious CA on the whole aperture filter, but none on the reduced aperture one. If the sky ever clears again , I hoe to have a better look .

Here area few photos taken before those clouds brought in showers :

     

Yes,that bit of green is some gaffer tape holding the cap on .... you never know ....

 

Heather

 

[Stu]

Looking good @Tiny Clanger. Hope you get a break soon. There was a small spot visible today, but they can be surprisingly easy to miss sometimes. Probably will have disappeared by the time it clears, so we will have to wait for another to arrive.

[wookie1965]

I've just bought back the lunt solar wedge I sold to a great friend who has a ha scope now so cannot wait. 

[NiCo10]

I've booked the day off again. 2015 played ball but I'm still bitter and the transit of Venus from 2012....

[paulastro]

Just a reminder, if you still haven't got a solar filter!

There's an article in the June AN (and S@N mag) with more information. The table below, culled from AN, shows information from various places in the UK.  Its actually better the further north you are located! 😀  However, I'm afraid the weather has an inverse relationship with the eclipse circumstances 😒.

 

 

 

 

[JamesF]

I found quite a handy map here:

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/map/2021-june-10

You may need to zoom out a bit to find your location first.  Here's what it says for (close enough to) me:

James

[Tiny Clanger]

I found this page useful, it attempts to pick up your location (ha ha, I'm not in Coventry, fooled the interwebs !) but you can set any place you wish to get timings:

https://in-the-sky.org/news.php?id=20210610_09_100

And a mildly embarrasing footnote ... that first look at the Sun I had ? When I didn't see the sunspot which was there ? Ahem , turns out what I thought was muck on the eyepiece was ... the sunspot . Realised next day when I saw two (and had scrupulously cleaned the EP ...) I think I was expecting something rounder and fuzzy edged , what I saw was like a tiny fleck of paint or metal, sharp edged and irregular. You live and learn , eh ?

I'd read somewhere that a green filter can show more detail , and I just had enough time to give it a quick try. I thought I could distinguish more fine edge detail around one of the spots. Turning the Sun green did make it a bit eerie, but I look forward to having more than a 15 minute cloud gap to give it a proper study and  the green filter a proper test.

Heather

[Stu]

6 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

I found this page useful, it attempts to pick up your location (ha ha, I'm not in Coventry, fooled the interwebs !) but you can set any place you wish to get timings:

https://in-the-sky.org/news.php?id=20210610_09_100

And a mildly embarrasing footnote ... that first look at the Sun I had ? When I didn't see the sunspot which was there ? Ahem , turns out what I thought was muck on the eyepiece was ... the sunspot . Realised next day when I saw two (and had scrupulously cleaned the EP ...) I think I was expecting something rounder and fuzzy edged , what I saw was like a tiny fleck of paint or metal, sharp edged and irregular. You live and learn , eh ?

I'd read somewhere that a green filter can show more detail , and I just had enough time to give it a quick try. I thought I could distinguish more fine edge detail around one of the spots. Turning the Sun green did make it a bit eerie, but I look forward to having more than a 15 minute cloud gap to give it a proper study and  the green filter a proper test.

Heather

Nice one Heather! Sunspots can be tricky to spot sometimes, and dirt on eyepieces does show up much more when solar observing too so it can be confusing. Glad you saw it/them anyway.

Whilst a green filter may help, I suspect the band pass is possibly too wide to improve contrast that much. Worth a go though. A continuum filter has a narrower bandpass so should give better results, or if you already have a UHC or OIII filter, try those too, I found they work quite well.

[Stu]

SkySafari is handy for pinpointing the start and finish time of the eclipse where you are. Stellarium and others likely do the same.

[John]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

SkySafari is handy for pinpointing the start and finish time of the eclipse where you are. Stellarium and others likely do the same.

When we were at the SGL star party with the large partial eclipse (2015?) I had Stellarium running as I observed the eclipse and it mirrored what was on show really accurately.

That was a lovely clear morning with an 80% plus eclipse and a drop in temperature as max coverage was reached

Were you at that one Stu ?

 

 

[Stu]

4 minutes ago, John said:

Were you at that one Stu ?

Yep 👍😀

One of the few places to have clear skies for it as I recall. My best ever star party, four clear nights with a 16” dob plus the eclipse! Amazing.

[AstroNebulee]

21 minutes ago, Stu said:

Yep 👍😀

One of the few places to have clear skies for it as I recall. My best ever star party, four clear nights with a 16” dob plus the eclipse! Amazing.

Great images Stu, I'd be ecstatic with them and be happy to get something of this eclipse. Is that a sunspot on the top right quarter of the sun? 

 

Clear skies 

[Stu]

13 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Great images Stu, I'd be ecstatic with them and be happy to get something of this eclipse. Is that a sunspot on the top right quarter of the sun? 

 

Clear skies 

Yep, that was a sunspot. As I recall, in Ha there were proms either side of the ‘bite’ out of the moon which looked quite dramatic.

This was the setup I had then, it has changed a lot since, but was still very good.

We had an excellent event up at the BT site. See who you can spot in the panorama. I can see @RikM, @steppenwolf and @daz at least.

I had my 16” dob back then, in the days when the Dob Mob used to grace us with their presence 😉🤣. Four clear nights, more galaxies than I had seen in all my previous 15 years observing put together, and then some! Great memories.

[John]

Nice memories

Stellarium shows this for the max on 10th June from here (sunspot is a guess !):

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

We had an excellent event up at the BT site. See who you can spot in the panorama. I can see @RikM, @steppenwolf and @daz at least

Thank you for confirming the sunspot, It looks amazing at the star party and so much to see on 4 clear night's there you did well capturing all those galaxies. I've not been to a star party yet as only got into astronomy last May, so maybe sometime in the future to go to one. Clear skies 

[steppenwolf]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

We had an excellent event up at the BT site. See who you can spot in the panorama.

It was a great day, Jane and I had a really good time although I seem to recall that it was quite cold? The atmosphere was terrific and it was great fun handing out the free solar glasses that I got from the Sky at Night magazine editor - these were originally destined for my grandson’s primary school but at the last moment West Sussex County Council decreed that all children should be kept in the classroom to watch the event on TV to avoid any risk of damaging their eyes - I was livid and the children disappointed. Happily there were loads of schoolchildren at the BT site enjoying a a wonderful natural event in all its glory.

[Stu]

47 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Thank you for confirming the sunspot, It looks amazing at the star party and so much to see on 4 clear night's there you did well capturing all those galaxies. I've not been to a star party yet as only got into astronomy last May, so maybe sometime in the future to go to one. Clear skies 

Yes, hopefully things will open up enough for us to be able to safely attend Star Parties this autumn. Let’s keep fingers crossed 🤞🤞

[Stu]

1 hour ago, steppenwolf said:

It was a great day, Jane and I had a really good time although I seem to recall that it was quite cold?

Yes, it was a little chilly, and as John said, you could really feel the change in light and warmth as it was around the fullest extent.

Until I looked today I had no idea I had caught you in that picture Steve, or the others. An excellent day, one I think @Mark at Beaufortwas heavily involved with, if not instrumental in involving 👍👍

[Tiny Clanger]

1 hour ago, steppenwolf said:

It was a great day, Jane and I had a really good time although I seem to recall that it was quite cold? The atmosphere was terrific and it was great fun handing out the free solar glasses that I got from the Sky at Night magazine editor - these were originally destined for my grandson’s primary school but at the last moment West Sussex County Council decreed that all children should be kept in the classroom to watch the event on TV to avoid any risk of damaging their eyes - I was livid and the children disappointed. Happily there were loads of schoolchildren at the BT site enjoying a a wonderful natural event in all its glory.

I was in a local school that day ( a Friday perhaps ?) it was clear round here, and broke a lifetime's rule (NEVER VOLUNTEER FOR ANYTHING.) . The partial eclipse happened to coincide with a whole school assembly , so I did a brief explanation of what it was all about to 180 four to ten year olds , with the obligatory stern warnings against looking directly at the Sun.

With side doors on the hall conveniently facing south I had set up some old binos on a tripod (one side with caps left on) and co-opted a long suffering teaching assistant to hold a bit of white card to act as a screen, the entire school trooped past and had a look at the image on the card as they left en route to morning playtime . Quite a few were more interested in getting out to play than the event before their eyes though !

Heather

 

 

 

[steppenwolf]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

An excellent day, one I think @Mark at Beaufortwas heavily involved with, if not instrumental in involving 👍👍

Yes indeed, Mark was very much involved in getting the show on the road. I also remember @Helen setting up a great visual resource for the youngsters.

[Davey-T]

5 hours ago, Stu said:

We had an excellent event up at the BT site. See who you can spot in the panorama. I can see @RikM, @steppenwolf and @daz at least.

I had my 16” dob back then, in the days when the Dob Mob used to grace us with their presence 😉🤣. Four clear nights, more galaxies than I had seen in all my previous 15 years observing put together, and then some! Great memories.

I remember it well, a great day including a look at WL through your scope, only downside I was late arriving and missed my breakfast roll 😂

Dave