December 19th - assortment of filters

[MapleRidge]

Good day everyone...

Early morning cloud cleared off after breakfast today and snow clearing held up my attempts to get to the observatory until late morning, but i eventually got setup to try to image. It was a frustrating start as I couldn't get the double stack tuned properly and eventually gave up with poorly tuned part on the NE disk in the full disk image where it affected the fewest features in the FD image.

The first set of images were Ha, taken through the LS80T/LS75FHa solar scope with a B1800Ha blocker and the ASI1600MM camera with a 1.6x barlow:

LS80T_LS75_17_13_14.jpg (773.07 KiB) Viewed 559 times

LS80T_LS75_17_13_14-FC.jpg (710.81 KiB) Viewed 559 times

I added a 2x barlow ahead of the ASI290MM camera in an attempt to image the AR's in greater detail. The greater image scale showed how poor the seeing was, making focus difficult to judge. Part of the problems associated with seeing in the winter...the air temp was running around -9C when I got started and did not arm up much more. The largest group of AR's was in the south, with more on the NW and NW limbs:

South-Ha_2xLS80T_LS75.jpg (923.12 KiB) Viewed 559 times

South-Ha_2xLS80T_LS75-FC.jpg (934.67 KiB) Viewed 559 times

NE-Ha_2xLS80T_LS75.jpg (339.22 KiB) Viewed 559 times

NE-Ha_2xLS80T_LS75-FC.jpg (536.33 KiB) Viewed 559 times

NE-Ha_2xLS80T_LS75.jpg (339.22 KiB) Viewed 559 times

NW-Ha_2xLS80T_LS75-FC.jpg (807.9 KiB) Viewed 559 times

I had to take a break after the Ha set to have lunch with the family on the occasion of my daughters 20th birthday! I was able to go back out briefly before her grandparents came to visit and break out the birthday cake

The second round of images were taken in WL and CaK after swapping scopes...replaced the Lunt LS80T solar scope with a Lunt 80mm ED. The WL image was taken with the Lunt Solar Wedge/Baader Continuum filter and the CaK used the Lunt B1800CaK filter. The seeing limited the image quality:

LS80_WL_18_22_57.jpg (558.62 KiB) Viewed 559 times

LS80_WL_18_22_57-FC.jpg (762.9 KiB) Viewed 559 times

CaK_LS80_18_29_03.jpg (894.82 KiB) Viewed 559 times

CaK_LS80_18_29_03-FC.jpg (948 KiB) Viewed 559 times

After a week of cloud I was happy to have the clear day...even with the poor seeing.

The day stayed clear and the full moon rose over the snow covered landscape. Below is a quick pic of the observatories in the moonlight:

20211219_222552.jpg (501.46 KiB) Viewed 559 times

Take care everyone,
Brian

[Simon2940]

Dec 21st? Are you from the future?

Some cracking data either way!

[MapleRidge]

Simon...Good catch on my date error, thanks. Fixed now.

Also appreciate the comments on the images

Brian

[DeepSolar64]

Brian,
You are snowlar observing already. Jeesh...

Your images turned out well. I especially like the 4th image down. The colored Ha southern Ha shot. Awesome!!

James

[Ivan]

Great set, Brian! It's incredible that it was all captured at -9 Celsius. I can imagine how the wires of a camera, a mount, a laptop turn to stone. But all this did not stop us from making a wonderful session, bravo!
And thanks for the landscape in the light of the moon, it is very similar to the landscapes that I see now with us.

Ivan

[Carbon60]

Great images, Brian, under challenging conditions. -9 deg C would make news headlines here. I can only imagine how cold that is.
Thanks for showing the beautiful winter holiday scenery.

Stu.

[christian viladrich]

Nice images Brian in spite of difficult conditions. -9°C is really cold ...

[marktownley]

A lovely set of images Brian, glad you included the snowy obs shot too. Sounds like you all had a great day.

[ffellah]

These are great, Brian. You extracted a lot of fine detail in spite of the poor winter seeing conditions. I think you did really well.

Franco

[EGRAY_OBSERVATORY]

Excellent set Brian and the filter trials are very interesting, with lots of detail shown

Thanks for sharing your cold weather scene

Terry

[Montana]

Mmmmm cake and solar observing - pure heaven!

Brian, you are so lucky to live in such a beautiful place the Sun looks amazing as does the observatories in the snow I wish your daughter all the best for another orbit around our star.

Alexandra

[rigel123]

Great images Brian despite the seeing! Love the shot of the observatories too! Hoping to get out this morning to get my own peek at the sun!

[MapleRidge]

Thanks to everyone for your comments and feedback on the images...always very much appreciated

-9C is no big deal for me...all relative to what you consider 'normal'...then again, maybe I'm a bit abnormal The coldest morning I ever imaged was -26C and that was cold. Normally the solar equipment is setup in an observatory with no heated room (and the new one will be the same). I currently have everything running in the big roll off while construction is underway, so yesterday I had the luxury of doing image capture form the heated warm room. The only real issue with the cold is that the LCD monitor that I use to check tuning while next to the scope does not like the cold and part of the tuning issue was the very dim display I was trying to use in the daylight. The moonlit landscape was taken at -13C

Alexandra, I will pass on your birthday wishes to Madeline!

Brian

[arnedanielsen]

Beautiful collection, Brian!

Best regards,
Arne

[MapleRidge]

Thanks Arne

Brian

[eroel]

Brian:
Beautiful snowlar imaging session.
Super images in spite of difficult conditions, very well done.
Thanks my friend and have the best of this X´mas days.
Keep warm and safe.
Eric.