Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

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Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by Montana »

After days upon days of rain and grey cloud, the clouds cleared this afternoon. The sky was probably 50/50 cloud and blue but I would say the Sun stayed behind a cloud more often than not.

As the hubby's favourite is Calcium K I set up the TEC140 with the Lunt CaK filter and we both sat and enjoyed the visual view of the Sun. It looked like a bright washed out lilac disc. We noticed that the colour was almost identical to the lavender that we were sat next to. It was pale purple lavender, not dark or rich but a washed out purple. When initially putting the eye to eyepiece the only thing you could see was the main active region spots of AR13068 but within seconds the eyes adjusted and you could see the plage around it. Within 30 seconds the eyes could see the bright plage in the middle of the disc, then I could see another active region around 5 O'Clock and the plage detail around it. When my eyes adjusted after a couple of minutes I could clearly make out the super granulation and I swear I could see faint wisps of proms but I wasn't sure. There was no pin sharp detail, it was more a blurred viewed but I could clearly see the contrast of the plage and super granulation patterns. My hubby could also see these features but he seemed hesitant to say he could see the super granulation pattern.

I tried to do a mock up image of what the view looked like through the eyepiece to me, I then cleaned the image to what we imagers usually do to alter an image so you can see the effect.

The colour was nearly identical to this
ImageLavender by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

The set up
ImageCalcium II K set up by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

The eyepiece view (the proms were not this clear but I couldn't blur them out enough, there were hints they were there)
Image2022-07-31 CaK full solar disc visual mock up by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

Cleaned for image presentation and correctly orientated
Image2022-07-31 CaK full solar disc proms f colour by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

Image2022-07-31 CaK full solar disc by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

AR13068
ImageSun_151744_31_07_2022_f colour by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

I hope this is of interest.

Alexandra


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by Carbon60 »

Really nice FDs, Alexandra. Your session sounds very similar to mine today .... late afternoon with Sun and clouds in calcium II K.

Finally some Sun!

Stu.


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by ffellah »

Alexandra: great description of your CaK observations through the Tec140. You could actually see many features ! The disk came out great, love your garden and scope set up. All good !

Franco
Last edited by ffellah on Mon Aug 01, 2022 6:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by Radon86 »

Hi Alexandra,

Thanks for sharing your Ca K images, very nice !
Hope you enjoyed the football! Congrats to the Lionesses ! Maybe you can move south, as there is probably more Sun down in the South!

Magnus


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by DeepSolar64 »

Alexandra,
I love it! You did great on visually observing in CaIIK!! You could see quite a bit of detail and your husband could too. I would love to have a filter and try it. So lavender is the natural color of CaK. That's nice to know when coloring CaK images. I also thought your attempt to simulate the visual view with an image was well done. And you visually picked up the prominences too! WoW!!

You did very well on your descriptions too. Every bit as well as I do!

Two thumbs up! Very well done!! :hamster: :bow

James


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by Sergio Alessandrelli »

Great images!


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by marktownley »

Very nice Alexandra! I've never thought about the colour of CaK like that but you are right about it.


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by Alto »

Loved the back story!

Nice to see I colour my CaK disks correctly!

I, too, need to move southwards - the days of decent viewing hereabouts in NE Scotland are getting ridiculously low!

Even fewer in the next wee while as I've bought some new clouds! :D


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by MAURITS »

The images looks very nice despite the weather conditions.
Beautiful flowers and setup in the garden.
Here about the same weather...


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by Montana »

Thanks guys, it was lovely and relaxing to sit and watch the Sun together and really look and use our eyes.

I was thinking about this last night, when I first started work in my twenties I could easily see the light which excites DAPI when it illuminated the slide on the microscope, this was bright and was at 360nm. In the past years I keep thinking the light on the microscope is not switched on or they have changed the filters as it is totally black. So, it can't be that the microscope has changed it must be that I can no longer see 360nm anymore. That is very sad and I wonder when 390nm will disappear :(

I need to move to the Isle of Man, every time we look at Sat24 it is totally clear skies and Cheshire is covered with clouds :(

Alexandra


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by pedro »

Lovely images Alexandra. The CaK proms came out great


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by rigel123 »

Ditto what the others have said. What a peaceful looking area to view the sun! Alas, the only way I can see the CaK these days is on my monitor, but that's OK too!


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by DeepSolar64 »

Alexandra,
I am not sure if I have asked this before but what do you do at work to use a microscope? We have a couple of low power digital microscopes for viewing circuit boards at work that I rarely get to use.

Your eyes may be unusually sensitive to UV or near UV wavelengths. I have never heard of anyone being able to see 360nm. You might not be able to see 360nm anymore but you do well at 393nm! Hopefully you won't lose your ability to see it.

Do more visual CaK and post your results. I enjoyed your visual perspective!

James


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by Montana »

Thanks for all the lovely comments :)

James I work in cancer research, in men's cancers to be exact, mostly prostate cancer but at the moment I am doing a large project on penile cancer with my PhD student. We are looking at the tumour immune micro environment. So I do a lot of multiplex immunofluorescent staining and imaging of penile / prostate tissue. This last week we have been making prostate tissue macro arrays ready for the next part of the project to follow on the from the last. So doing a bit of histology instead.

Last summer I won a tiny photo competition set by the microscope manufacturer, you had to link your hobby to your work, that was easy!! :) I donated the prize money to CBSAP of course :)
Alexandra Hart GUCR.jpg
Alexandra Hart GUCR.jpg (428.15 KiB) Viewed 377 times
The DAPI is the blue nuclear stain (ex 360nm em 460nm)

Alexandra


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by arnedanielsen »

Lovely images and story, Alexandra!

Best regards,
Arne


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by DeepSolar64 »

Alexandra,
You have a very admirable job and I certainly appreciate your work. I fear cancer. My mother passed away from metastasized breast cancer back in 2011 and it was terrible watching her suffer with it. Prostate cancer is with men what breast cancer is to women and it does worry me, especially now that I am getting older. Now if someone would only find a way to tag cancer at the beginning so the body's immune system will destroy it at the cellular level before it can get of any size and spread. People like you give me hope. Hat's off to you. And penile cancer DOES sound scary. :shock:

I have three student microscopes here at home. They are not high end and max out at 600x but they do well. I was into microscopy as a teen and was the assistant to the teacher in biology class in the 10th grade. I even had a key to the lab and would stay after school to do my own research and I would order cultures of bacteria, insects, fungi and protozoa many of which I took home to study there. I ordered from the same catalogs the school used. Carolina Biological Supply Company. They are still in business but now one can order online instead of using paper catalogs.

Yep, I was lableled " nerd " and " geek " by many but it never thwarted me from doing what I enjoyed doing. Learning about the natural world, hands on.

And maybe you imaged the solar prostate! And I have seen sunspots with projections! :lol:

:bow

James

P.S. Who manufactures your lab microscopes?


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by Montana »

James,
Our little workhorse is the Vectra 3 https://www.akoyabio.com/phenoimager/in ... ectra-3-0/ but it is very old and falling apart, it takes a gentle touch to keep it scanning and it may just cease working before we get this final project finished, I have my fingers crossed. We can't afford a new one because no one donated any money to Cancer Research UK during the pandemic and they are very short of cash :( the new versions of the microscopes are here but way out of our price range :(
https://www.akoyabio.com/phenoimager/instruments/

Alexandra


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Re: Calcium II K Sun with visual mock up for James

Post by DeepSolar64 »

The microscope you use is much nicer and a bit stronger than the one I use at work.

COVID-19 has hurt everything and donating to cancer research is indeed a very worthy cause.

Good luck on your project.

James


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