Solar Activity 20 Feb

[brianb]

Two sessions today - before lunch, transparency was poor due to high cloud, the remnants of the showers which have afflicted my site for a couple of days; after lunch, the high cloud was clearing but surface cloud (a fog bank) was moving in.

The Sun remains fairly active. AR1049 is the only area containing spots visible in white light, and it's not hugely active, but there does appear to be some minor flaring going on - the change in the centre of the AR between the two sessions is notable.

2010 Feb 20, 1307 UT. 80mm, 2x Powermate & 2x barlows (f/30), Baader ND5.0 solar film & solar continuum filter, DMK21.

1144 UT. 60mm, 3x barlow (f/25), Lunt B1200 CaK diagonal, DMK21.

1133 UT. Solarscope 60, 2x barlow (f/16), DMK21.

1320 UT. Solarscope 60, 4x Imagemate (f/32), DMK21.

The notable prominence on the NW limb persists:

1136 UT. Solarscope 60, f/16, DMK21.

1324 UT. Solarscope 60, f/32, DMK21.

But the highlight of the day's action was the complex area of activity near the SE limb - a mass of filaments with some fairly active small plages

1139 UT, Solarscope 60, f/16, DMK41

1322 UT, Solarscope 60, f/32, DMK21

1333 UT, Solarscope 60, f/16, DMK41

Finally the whole disc overviews:

2010 Feb 20, 1110 UT, Coronado PST CaK, prime focus (f/10), DMK41

Transparency variable, mostly poor to moderate, high cloud (am), fog banks (pm). Seeing variable, mostly moderate but with some intervals of severe boiling. Temp +2C, wind SW 1-2 (am) increasing 3-4 (pm).

[NickH]

Love em...the Cak full disc is superb

[moocher]

I`m with Nick, the Cak shot is far from cak its SUPERB!!!!

Alan:)

[brianb]

Thanks guys ... but the full disk CaK is so easy if you have the right kit! The coloured oneshot of the filaprom area was technically the hardest to get right - seperate processing in the halves of the image seperated by the limb, the prom wasn't all that bright & the sky background was brighter than usual because of the high cloud. I'm surprised it worked as well as it did. And getting a crummy shot of the spot group in white light was hard ....

[NickH]

Yup, but an SV60 makes it all the easier :-). A PSt Cak has to be spot on to get images like that