A little flare and some CaK

[grimble_cornet]

Saturday was a very frustrating day for solar imaging. Seeing started out very poor indeed but improved slightly by mid morning and I was trying to capture in the small gaps between the clouds.
However, there are worse ways to spend a Saturday and I wanted to try a few experiments with my new ASI290MM camera. Like most ZWO cameras, the ASI290MM had shown some Newton's rings when I gave it a quick try last week but nowhere near as bad as my old ASI120MM. I managed to find the Teleskop Services tilt adapter I bought many years ago which failed to solve the problems with the ASI120MM. A slight tilt, maybe 1 degree, solved the Newton's rings problem completely so maybe the ASI290MM could be a useful camera for Ha with its relatively high frame rate (compared to my old, trusty, Grasshopper 3) and small 2.9 micron pixels?
I started out with my Tal 100, Quark Chromosphere and Grasshopper camera on AR2770.


Tal100 Quark Grasshopper 080820 1149 ut AR2770 by Mike Garbett, on Flickr

Not brilliant in the mediocre seeing but good enough to use as a bench mark to compare the cameras?



After playing around for an hour or so trying with limited success to capture the rather nice prom, a decent gap appeared in the cloud cover and I could see what looked like a small flare in AR2770

Tal100 Quark ZWO ASI290MM 080820 1350ut by Mike Garbett, on Flickr


Tal100 Quark ZWO ASI290MM 080820 1350ut coloured by Mike Garbett, on Flickr

According to GOES I had managed to stumble on the peak of a tiny Class A flare at 1350 ut.

The higher frame rate available from the ASI290MM seemed to help a little with the poor seeing but conditions were too variable for accurate comparisons? Must spend more time with this camera though as it should be a better match than the Grasshopper for some of my scopes.



The next image shows some quite complex structure in the area of 'plage' approaching the NW limb?

Tal100 Quark ZWO ASI290MM 080820 1404ut inverted coloured by Mike Garbett, on Flickr




I then swapped over to my Lunt CaK1200 unit for a quick look in Calcium K-line. The Tal 100 couldn't cope with the poor seeing but, after several hours of frustration fishing in ever decreasing cracks between the clouds, I really couldn't be bothered to stop down or move to a smaller scope. So, they are what they are but, once again, the ASI290MM seems to produce decent results.

Tal100 CaK1200 ZWO ASI290MM 080820 1407ut by Mike Garbett, on Flickr

Tal100 CaK1200 ZWO ASI290MM 080820 1408ut by Mike Garbett, on Flickr

[solardave]

nice hi res shots

[eroel]

Mike:
Beautiful clean and crisp images.
Regards,
Eric.

[rsfoto]

Hi Mike,

Excellent images. Well done.

[MAURITS]

Excellent Mike.

[dhkaiser]

Well done, nice and sharp.

[DeepSolar64]

Congratulations on the flare capture!!

[Montana]

Absolutely wonderful series of images Mike I very much like the CaK image at the end as it shows the beautiful 'bright ring' around the spot all these features we haven't seen for such a long time

Alexandra

[JochenM]

Excellent set of images, Mike.

[grimble_cornet]

Thanks guys.
Alexandra: I was quite surprised by the detail in the close up CaK image. Wish I had spent a little more time optimising the settings on the ASI 290MM as it seems to handle CaK very well.

[ffellah]

Excellent results, Mike. I guess you had good seeing...

Franco

[grimble_cornet]

Thanks Franco. The seeing was pretty poor but as gaps opened up between the clouds I got a few seconds of less turbulent air. Very frustrating but quite pleased with the results in the end.

[marktownley]

You got a good run of images there Mike!

[yltansg]

Hi Mike,

Great set of images, especially like the colour you have selected for CAK.

Alfred