I thought my previous solar observing session would surely be the last of the year. But a combination of favorable conditions on December 17th made it hard to resist another look at the Sun. It was 54 degrees, with clear skies and a gentle wind, and the Sun had recently produced a swarm of sunspots.
Wearing only a light jacket I set up my equipment and expected the usual efficient, trouble-free start of observations. Not this time! Something was wrong with the Internet connection. The mount control software could not synchronize with a standard time source. Finally, after many wasted minutes restarting the computer and resetting the modem/router, the software's clock was eventually set to the correct time. In the next step, apparently, the mount did not properly reach its initial "home" position. Consequently, the telescope did not point toward the Sun when commanded to slew there. Then a wire got caught between moving parts in the mount causing the mount to jam. I shut everything down and restarted. The mount, once again, did not properly home. So I pointed the telescope manually toward the Sun and disconnected the mount from the computer. Since the mount is nearly polar aligned, it still tracked the Sun very well. I used the hand controller rather than the computer to move around the Sun. After all this I was, finally, able to successfully gather images. I'm really nervous about the homing error. This has never happened before. I hope it can be corrected without sending the mount back to Software Bisque.
In spite of the initial difficulties I enjoyed capturing a spectacular array of sunspots forming an irregular hexagon centered on the solar disc. The following imperfect 16-image mosaic shows a beautiful variety of features spread across the disc. (Click on the images below for larger views.)
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