Monday Sunshine and the Trees Be Gone! - 5th August
Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2019 7:07 pm
Despite wet weather this weekend i've been happy; having a drink in our garden on friday night at dusk and our neighbour came round to join us for a glass of wine. For years i've been asking if I can cut the top off a huge conifer tree that has been growing rampantly in her garden for too long; from about 2 - 5pm from march till october the tree blocks my afternoon view of the sun, only in July did the sun top the tree. I'd offered all sorts - i'd pay for a tree surgeon to come in and do the work, i'd pay for her fencing to be done in return for me topping the tree - to no avail. Then, all of a sudden on friday night she says "I can see why you want to cut the tree down it blocks the stars" - well I don't look at the stars, only our star, but hey, i'll take the logic! So, for the past 2 days i've been chopping down and chopping up said tree. It now presents a much lower height that now even gives me a window on the sun in the afternoons in the winter time! A winner!
Even more of winner today, the weather forecast was for grey and drizzle, when I got up I looked at Sat24 to see the cloud that was over me was about to pass with clear blue skies imminently rolling in. Bonus! I could see on GONG we had 2 emerging flux regions so was keen to see what I could find.
Starting with the full disk, Double stacking the Lunt 50 etalon with the Daystar Quark and the FLIR GH3 ICX916M camera. First thing that was apparent was the seeing was awful, so, I just rolled off a load of full disks with the view of processing and presenting the best, which, is below:
Ha-FD-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Ha-FD-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
I was keen to get a closer view, but the SSM was telling me seeing was going between 3 and 8 arc seconds, with very fleeting moments when it dropped below 3. I decided to go into fully automated mode with the SM90 that I was double stacking with the Daystar Quark; using the SSM plugin in firecapture, and the hinode guider to lock on target (which it does very well), I set the capture threshold at 3 arc sec, with the discard at 4 arc seconds. Not much was recording very quick so I just left it to it and came back every 20 minutes or so for a new target area.
First off the emerging flux regions; the one closest to the limb brightened quite a bit from when I took the full disk, and the one in the right hand side displaying pores in white light as seen in Pepes images where the flux tubes emerge from the photosphere, looping with small connecting magnetic arcs in the chromosphere.
Emerging-Flux-Regions-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Emerging-Flux-Regions-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Over on the opposite limb the remnants of easters active regions still are visible as turbulent plage and small filaments marking magnetic fields. Wonder if we'll still recognise it in 2 weeks time?
Ex-AR-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Ex-AR-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Inspired by Christians shot I took a look towards the solar north pole and sure enough you can see the brighter points of polar faculae, normally visible as a photospheric feature shining up into the chromosphere.
North-Pole-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
North-Pole-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Hoping tomorrow morning is bright like todays. Hope you like these.
Mark
Even more of winner today, the weather forecast was for grey and drizzle, when I got up I looked at Sat24 to see the cloud that was over me was about to pass with clear blue skies imminently rolling in. Bonus! I could see on GONG we had 2 emerging flux regions so was keen to see what I could find.
Starting with the full disk, Double stacking the Lunt 50 etalon with the Daystar Quark and the FLIR GH3 ICX916M camera. First thing that was apparent was the seeing was awful, so, I just rolled off a load of full disks with the view of processing and presenting the best, which, is below:
Ha-FD-bw by Mark Townley, on FlickrHa-FD-colour by Mark Townley, on FlickrI was keen to get a closer view, but the SSM was telling me seeing was going between 3 and 8 arc seconds, with very fleeting moments when it dropped below 3. I decided to go into fully automated mode with the SM90 that I was double stacking with the Daystar Quark; using the SSM plugin in firecapture, and the hinode guider to lock on target (which it does very well), I set the capture threshold at 3 arc sec, with the discard at 4 arc seconds. Not much was recording very quick so I just left it to it and came back every 20 minutes or so for a new target area.
First off the emerging flux regions; the one closest to the limb brightened quite a bit from when I took the full disk, and the one in the right hand side displaying pores in white light as seen in Pepes images where the flux tubes emerge from the photosphere, looping with small connecting magnetic arcs in the chromosphere.
Emerging-Flux-Regions-bw by Mark Townley, on FlickrEmerging-Flux-Regions-colour by Mark Townley, on FlickrOver on the opposite limb the remnants of easters active regions still are visible as turbulent plage and small filaments marking magnetic fields. Wonder if we'll still recognise it in 2 weeks time?
Ex-AR-bw by Mark Townley, on FlickrEx-AR-colour by Mark Townley, on FlickrInspired by Christians shot I took a look towards the solar north pole and sure enough you can see the brighter points of polar faculae, normally visible as a photospheric feature shining up into the chromosphere.
North-Pole-bw by Mark Townley, on FlickrNorth-Pole-colour by Mark Townley, on FlickrHoping tomorrow morning is bright like todays. Hope you like these.
Mark
with vodka mixed in?
