Finally Some Sunshine 6th July

[marktownley]

After our glorious spring with weeks of sunshine, we seem to be in a monsoon summer with a westerly airflow, the jet stream blowing in endless weather systems off the Atlantic. Weather windows have been few and far between, often occurring when have been at work; such is life however yesterday when I got back from work old yellow face was out! It was late in the afternoon and knew seeing was going to be ropey but just had to get the scopes out for an hour.

Starting off with the full disk in CaK at 60mm aperture and f16 at both the camera and filter. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much plage there was at cycle 25 latitudes - as sure sign things are not far below the solar surface...

CaK-FD-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

CaK-FD-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

There really wasn't no point going above 60mm in CaK as it was a boiling swilling mess so I switched to Ha as the seeing is tamer at larger apertures with the longer wavelengths.

Starting off with the full disk I was keen to see whether my tweaks of mounting the etalon cell had worked, and previous problems of pinched optics had been resolved. They had and I was happy to see the most activity i've seen on the sun in quite some time, all these filaments are a good sign and are tell tale signs of increasing magnetic fields with the new solar cycle.

Ha-FD-DS-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Ha-FD-DS-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Using the Quark body on the back of the 100mm Tal with the Airylab 2.7x telecentric, and despite many exposures the seeing was boiling and this was really the only image of note, pleased with how it came out though!

close-up-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

close-up-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

A short but sweet session, but nice to get behind the scopes. Hope the weather is positive for you all!

Mark

[LTHB]

Beautiful captures, and nice to see the corresponding views of the active regions on the disk in h-alpha and CaK!

Frank

[rsfoto]

Hi Mark,

Great images

[Carbon60]

Nice images, Mark. Glad you got some Sun too yesterday. It might even be back for the weekend, with any luck.

Stu.

[marktownley]

Thanks guys! i'm hoping for more sun at the weekend, the rest of the week is looking wet again now.

[Rusted]

All very crisp!

BTW: Stop sending us your secondhand weather.

[dhkaiser]

"all these filaments are a good sign and are tell tale signs of increasing magnetic fields with the new solar cycle."

Oh how I hope you are right! Great imaging.

[DeepSolar64]

Very nice work, Mark. That long thin SE filament imaged really well. I am glad to see you getting some sunshine. I am clouded out today.

[marktownley]

Thanks everyone!

"all these filaments are a good sign and are tell tale signs of increasing magnetic fields with the new solar cycle."

Oh how I hope you are right!

I'm confident Dan, it's not supposition on my part, it's all part of how the solar cycle develops.

[eroel]

Mark:
Beautiful clean and crisp images.
Best wishes,
Eric.

[JochenM]

Nice and crisp, Mark.

It looks like the weather over here (so hopefully also in the UK) will be getting better next week.

[Derek Klepp]

A good session Mark.

[ffellah]

These are excellent Mark. Great detail in the Ha FD.

Franco

[marktownley]

Thanks everyone! Appreciate the kind comments. More rain again today, and tomorrow apparently. Clear skies forecast for the weekend however going to head out on the boat to find for a low horizon I can hunt out Neowise in the early hours so the sun may have to take a back seat till Sunday...

[arnedanielsen]

Lovely set of images, Mark!

Thanks for sharing!

Best regards,
Arne

[Martin_S]

Great imaging Mark,hope your weather holds out. Rain and clouds here in in Brisbane for the next few days.

Martin

[yltansg]

Hi Mark,

Excellent shots from a short session!!

Over this end, it has been raining for days as expected in this Southwest Monsoon season. Skies filled with rain clouds now:



Alfred

[marios i.]

Beautiful images Mark!