October 21 2020 Observations

[DeepSolar64]

Session time is 11:00am to 11:30am EDT local time ( US ). Partly cloudy skies. Seeing below average. Temp 73F.

Coronado SolarMax II 60 DS. 16x and 21.5x. ( WL )
I see a nice large pointed flamelike prom on the NE limb. I see a dark gap under it. In DS I see no other prominences. I see no filaments on the disc. AR12776 is easy and now heading past south center towards the west. The spot can still be seen in Ha. The mottles are soft today and fairly low in contrast. I can see a plage faintly in the NE.

Orion 70mm Solar Telescope. 25x and 50x. ( WL )
The spot of AR12776 is easily seen. It has a nice dark umbra with an extension on the east side. The penumbra is easily seen. I cannot see any faculae at all and granulation is invisible.

Carpe Noctem

James

9B4345FD-7B0D-4BCE-BC8A-DE3000024025.jpeg (587.65 KiB) Viewed 333 times

[EGRAY_OBSERVATORY]

Excellent report James.
Still hopeful for some more activity from the NE area and/or even the NW AR.

I'm in the observatory just now at nearly 2AM local, completing the final part of tidying all the cables to the scopes etc.,
and had a nice view of Mars with its' orange glow in an immaculately clear sky. Shame it probably won't stay like that during Thursday, but who knows, miracles will never cease...

CLEAR SKIES
Terry

[DeepSolar64]

Terry,
I would love to have an observatory to work in!

Seeing was substandard today and was washing out fine detail and it seemed that I was having trouble getting the scope on-band. But maybe the seeing was thwarting my efforts there too. It’s harder to tune a fuzzy disc. I couldn’t see more than the spot in white light and had to wait for better moments in the shimmering seeing to get any detail in that.

Sunny Skies!

James

[eroel]

James, thanks for the report, got some shots.
Eric.

[DeepSolar64]

Your shots looked really nice Eric. There was details I just couldn't get today. I could see that big prom but just could not resolve it well. Could not get it sharp, among other details.

[Montana]

What a visual treat that prom must have been!! I actually have some blue sky here but the sun isn't shining (in the cloudy bits). I wondering whether to get the PST out in the bedroom ready for lunchtime. I bet it won't last that long.

Alexandra

[EGRAY_OBSERVATORY]

The only problem of you having an observatory James, is those pesky trees, where you would have to keep moving the observatory - I suppose... !!

%0% Sunny today at midday here, but can't do anything yet as have to go out. Maybe later.

Alexandra - it looks as if you will get one or two Sun views for a very short while today.

Cheers
Terry

[Montana]

Yep, I thought so too set everything up in the bedroom observatory, all cooled ready for a work break. Couldn't get the camera to work! Not recognised by the stupid computer! well it worked fine in June when we set everything up so what's changed? This new computer is the biggest most unrealiable heap of junk. My 8 year old Win7 was far better, never let me down. This computer seems to work when it fancies. I'm very miserable and back working again.

Alexandra

[EGRAY_OBSERVATORY]

Sorry to hear once again Alexandra that you have computer problems.

Have you heard how hammers can help ??

Windows-7 is still about the finest edition ever produced along with XP. That is precisely why my new hi-spec computer (not a laptop) in the observatory was professionally programmed with a Windows-7 professional x64 edition in July'20, complete with all the updates (till January'20 when M.S. stopped updating this version)...

It has 4 x USB-3 & 4 X USB-2 ports, 2 x PS/2 ports, a Serial RS-232 port, Hi and low resolution monitor ports as DVI & VGA., a mandatory DVD-R player and program disk facility, 2TB internal HDD., Bluetooth, WI-FI & Ethernet, Audio I/O ports, all in a 95 x 270 x 299.5mm (3.7 x 10.6 x 11.8 in) small-form factor case...

What more can any modern laptop do better than that ??

Sorry James to intervene in your excellent reports.

Cheers
Terry

[DeepSolar64]

No problem Terry. Both my PC and laptop still use Windows 7. I also have Ubuntu on my PC where I can boot into it if I wish. I like Windows XP really well too. Windows 10 is ok but I much prefer the older systems. My next computer will probably be an iMac or MacBook. 🖥

[EGRAY_OBSERVATORY]

Thanks James and your comments are very correct.

I'll look-up "Ubuntu" to see if anything useful extra to my IT friend and my professional PC supplier already do.

I also have two Win-XP machines, one being an old laptop, which will be needed for when I start work with my StarLightXpress HX-916 camera, as well as Win-8.1 (this machine) and another main-computer (in-house use) is also as Win-7, so the only other small laptop which was trialled in the observatory up to July'20 as a Win-10 machine, was quickly found to be incapable of dealing with many programs and in any case a horrible platform to even get used to... (so as was supplied to me as a good machine 2nd-hand/converted from Vista too by a friend - is due for the scrap-heap).
It's video-card failed, so its' small screen was simply useless too...

Many professional-presenters use Apple Laptops - when touring/doing presentations etc., which should suggest their capabilities are better than Windows machines, but I have never proved that as correct...

Cheers
Terry

[DeepSolar64]

Windows 10 like Android has “ back doors “ which allow snooping on users data. The older versions of Windows is not known for that and Apple MacOS and iOS as well as Ubuntu are known to be safer in this respect.

[EGRAY_OBSERVATORY]

Not surprised about the "snooping on data" James.
I use a professional security-package which has confirmed what you have just said and is (apparently) capable of dealing with such threats...

Cheers
terry

[DeepSolar64]

You can only hope your security package works.