AR3363 (and others) in stunning seeing!

[Stu]

I’ve had a pretty full-on week, so have had no time to observe but managed to pop the Tak this evening out to grab some late sunshine. I had seen some of the images of AR3363 and fancied a look!

The seeing is often better in the late afternoon/evening as things start to cool down, but this evening was especially good, in fact the best I’ve seen for a long time.

I used my normal crazy setup; Baader CoolWedge Mark II, MaxBright Mark II Binoviewers with a x1.7 GPC, 25mm Zeiss orthos, AP Barcon element and 2 extension tubes. I’ve genuinely no idea exactly what mag this gives! Some basic logic says 25/1.7/2=7.35 = x100 in the 740mm f/l Tak. Adding the extension tubes I’ve always assumed doubles it again to around x200 but it’s fairly high whatever the case is.

Anyway, back to the Sun. Once AR3363 was centred and snapped to focus I could tell just how good the seeing was. The detail visible was stunning! Petal like structure in the penumbra, detail in the umbra, beautiful faculae with several small spots embedded in it. A totally photographic type view.

The other ARs were somewhat overshadowed but had 3363 not been there they would have been pretty impressive in their own right.

Finally, the granulation. There’s never really a time when this is not visible in the Tak, although in the worst seeing it’s pretty vague. Today however it was incredibly sharp and well defined. The benefits of a dual speed focuser really come to the fore here as just a tiny tweak on the fine focus is enough to make it go from indistinct to right there! At these powers there is plenty to see, the cells look like proper tiny random shapes, and there are complex swirls in the patterns, with darker knots and the occasion tiny pore. I could observe for hours when conditions are like this though obviously the Sun tends to disappear behind trees and houses at this time.

This is a quick process of one of the better looking images I took with my phone, there may be other better ones in there, I’ll have a look later.

Looks like this one will be a belter! 👍

[Franklin]

Had the Quark on AR3363 this afternoon with the SD81s and 17mm silvertop plossl. Wow, there's a lot of solar activity going on there. Hopefully the clear skies will last the weekend out.

[Saganite]

18 minutes ago, Stu said:

I’ve had a pretty full-on week, so have had no time to observe but managed to pop the Tak this evening out to grab some late sunshine. I had seen some of the images of AR3363 and fancied a look!

The seeing is often better in the late afternoon/evening as things start to cool down, but this evening was especially good, in fact the best I’ve seen for a long time.

I used my normal crazy setup; Baader CoolWedge Mark II, MaxBright Mark II Binoviewers with a x1.7 GPC, 25mm Zeiss orthos, AP Barcon element and 2 extension tubes. I’ve genuinely no idea exactly what mag this gives! Some basic logic says 25/1.7/2=7.35 = x100 in the 740mm f/l Tak. Adding the extension tubes I’ve always assumed doubles it again to around x200 but it’s fairly high whatever the case is.

Anyway, back to the Sun. Once AR3393 was centred and snapped to focus I could tell just how good the seeing was. The detail visible was stunning! Petal like structure in the penumbra, detail in the umbra, beautiful faculae with several small spots embedded in it. A totally photographic type view.

The other ARs were somewhat overshadowed but had 3393 not been there they would have been pretty impressive in their own right.

Finally, the granulation. There’s never really a time when this is not visible in the Tak, although in the worst seeing it’s pretty vague. Today however it was incredibly sharp and well defined. The benefits of a dual speed focuser really come to the fore here as just a tiny tweak on the fine focus is enough to make it go from indistinct to right there! At these powers there is plenty to see, the cells look like proper tiny random shapes, and there are complex swirls in the patterns, with darker knots and the occasion tiny pore. I could observe for hours when conditions are like this though obviously the Sun tends to disappear behind trees and houses at this time.

This is a quick process of one of the better looking images I took with my phone, they may be other better ones in there, I’ll have a look later.

Looks like this one will be a belter! 👍

I had reason to call in on Linton Guise at about 3.30 this afternoon, and he had a Vixen and wedge set up and invited me to take a look.  I do no solar viewing...yet, but I was immediately taken by how sharp  the view was. I saw exactly the view that you have produced, and I was amazed that there was no shimmer, the seeing seemed to be perfect.

[John]

Great stuff !

I've got some solar outreach events coming up with Bristol AS. Hope the activity remains exciting so that we have some nice stuff to show the punters 🙂

I did some a couple of years back when the solar disk was completely featureless - I think the public thought we were nuts ! 🙄

[Mark at Beaufort]

Great photo and explanation of what you saw and imaged. I took out the 90mm frac and had a great view of the solar surface especially sunspot AR 3363

I have to say your photo using your Tak puts my effort to shame.

[Paz]

I've had a lull recently  but I was out today after work for some white light solar with the C8. AR3363 is big and with some clear faculae near it towards the limb as per your photo.

[IB20]

Great stuff, AR3363 is a real monster. I had some dog seeing this morning but it was still mighty impressive, showing a slight Wilson effect in the PST too. Plenty of faculae visible around the sunspot region and on occasion I saw lovely detail irradiating from the umbral centre. Granulation was somewhat washed out with the breeze though. I left the PST out all day and around 5-6pm noticed how clear the surface detail looked around then so the seeing certainly improved. Really looking forward to monitoring 3363 over the next few days, such a great time to be solar nerds!

[Stu]

This one may be a better image. As ever, the single shots just don’t get near the clarity, sharpness and detail visible through the scope visually. One day I’ll master stacking!