Nice Sunspot Pair

Nice Filaments Too!

It must be difficult for meteorologists to accurately predict cloud cover. Over many years of astronomical observing I've found their forecasts unreliable. May 25th was a perfect example. Instead of predicted clear skies, lots of clouds were present. Fortunately, there were enough gaps between clouds to allow some solar imaging. A strong breeze blew from time to time, but periods of good seeing did exist as clouds drifted by. It took nearly two hours to align my telescope mount because recent driveway paving had covered the accurate placement marks I had previously made for the tripod legs.

Two medium-sized sunspots were on display. Sunspot 1755, accompanied by dark, wavy filaments, appears above sunspot 1756 in the 6-image mosaic below. Tiny sunspot 1757 had just emerged from around the Sun's eastern limb on the left. This image was made with my new 1.5X Barlow lens.

(Click for full detail.)

Images here in my blog are usually displayed in colors that show well on computer screens. If you looked through the eyepiece of my solar telescope, the color would be red, and the view would be almost exactly like this:

The next image, is a larger view of sunspot 1755 and its accompanying filaments. This is a 3-image mosaic made with a 2X Barlow lens.

(Click for full detail.)

An inverted version of the preceding image highlights the floating filaments.

Finally, here is an enlarged view of sunspot 1756 made with a 2X Barlow lens.

(Click for full detail.)

I made new alignment marks on my driveway after I finished imaging. I'll be curious to see if they work well when I set my equipment up next.