And look at the Sun in Ha!! Incredible proms

[Stu]

Amazing views here. Seeing was good to start with but has dropped off now, views when good were incredible. So much going on in Ha in the big AR. Huge proms nearby too, and a nice filament by the AR.

[Nik271]

Is that a double stacked PST mod? Looks fab, the views must be very good.

[Stu]

1 hour ago, Nik271 said:

Is that a double stacked PST mod? Looks fab, the views must be very good.

It’s actually only single, but the views are still fab. Proms are amazing, surface detail still very good. I have a 150mm too which is incredible when the seeing is good, surface detail is fantastic in that one.

Some very poor handheld phone images attached, mainly to show the image scale as much as anything.

[LukeTheNuke]

3 hours ago, Nik271 said:

The proms are better seen when the bandwidth of the etalon is a bit wider, about 1 angstrom instead its nominal value of 0.6 at the recommended focal ratio of F7 and  above. The solar disk will be a bit washed out as a result. 

And the proms are better seen not through cloud! 😀 I recall now that thin cloud can zap proms. I'd just forgotten. The prom looked plenty bright to me at F7 and F9 yesterday. I'm used to trying to see spiral structure in faint galaxies, so proms aren't much of a challenge for me usually!

I remember reading up the technical details on the Quark and fussing over optimal focal ratio. But having used scopes from F6 to F9 (F6, F7, F7.5, F9) hundreds of times, swapping over white light and h-alpha sometimes (obviously with the scopes capped and pointing away from the sun!) I found them in practice all perfectly usable, for proms and solar disc. My favourite scope for visual with the Quark is the F9 100 mm, even though the F7.5 120 mm has more aperture as well. My wife agrees.

[Thalestris24]

On 10/05/2024 at 10:03, Thalestris24 said:

They say a solar storm is due to hit today... Mind you, they've said that before!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13402759/Severe-solar-storm-watch-alert-NOAA.html

 

Anyone see any aurorae last night? Nothing visible here, of course

 

[Highburymark]

1 hour ago, Thalestris24 said:

Anyone see any aurorae last night? Nothing visible here, of course

 

I managed to see it from north London - fairly faint but unmistakeable. No real colour, but nice nonetheless.

The huge prom has now dispersed into a colossal cloud of plasma - need to block out as much external light as possible to see it in detail, but it’s some sight.

[Thalestris24]

51 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

I managed to see it from north London - fairly faint but unmistakeable. No real colour, but nice nonetheless.

The huge prom has now dispersed into a colossal cloud of plasma - need to block out as much external light as possible to see it in detail, but it’s some sight.

If only I could get away from the city I'd probably be able to see some such naked eye celestial events. Apart from the lack of dark, it's nearly always cloudy here. Last night it was clear but not dark until after 11pm. I did have a look out of the window in the early hours but couldn't see anything beyond the light pollution   Most of the time I can only see a few bright stars and Jupiter (when its around) though a camera can pick up quite a lot of stars - even a mobile phone can.

Louise