Morning Session

Better Seeing

During the past few years I've noticed solar observing conditions are best in the morning between 8am and 11am. The atmosphere seems steadier then, before significant daytime heating occurs. On April 10th I was able to set up equipment for a morning session and, for the first time at my new site, there was almost no wind. I began recording at 8:44am EDT. Seeing was about 7/10 compared to the 5/10 conditions present on previous afternoon sessions. Unfortunately, I had some trouble with mount alignment which caused poor tracking later in the session. Also, for some unknown reason, my DMK41 camera had poor communication with its controlling computer causing video capture times to be twice as long as normal. Consequently, tracking and communication problems cancelled some of the advantages of good seeing.

Most of the interesting solar features were near the east limb. The following mosaic, made with a 2X Barlow lens, is a combination of 10 individual images. The three-umbra sunspot group 2032 can be seen in the upper right. Some nice prominences decorate the limb. A few dark filaments are scattered about. Details are fairly good because the atmosphere was relatively steady. (Click on the images below for enlarged views.)

Next is a closer look at sunspot group 2032. A white burst of energy is located just to the right of the tallest prominence.

The next image is a magnified view of the sunspots made with a 5X Barlow lens. At high magnification the sunspots were slowly drifting due to poor tracking while the video was recorded. In spite of poor tracking there is a good amount of detail in the picture.

The only other sunspot, 2030, was located near the western limb as shown below.

Episodes of good seeing allowed fine details to be visible in this picture of swirling spicules on the Sun's disc.

Finally, an arching prominence was present on the southwestern limb.

I'll have to work on mount alignment and camera communication problems in my next observing session.