Dodging Clouds

Windy Day

It tends to be windy at my observing site in spring. On April 21st it was 67 breezy degrees with fair weather clouds drifting by. I managed to image a few sunspots and one interesting prominence through gaps in the clouds.

I captured only ten videos this day because I explored possible solutions to communication problems between my camera, telescope mount, and laptop. Hoping to reduce USB traffic, I removed the USB receiver for my wireless trackball and controlled the laptop only through its touchpad. Next, I connected my DMK41 camera directly to its own dedicated USB port instead of feeding camera data through the same cable used by the telescope mount. With this setup the camera and the telescope mount each have their own dedicated USB ports. I was pleased to find the camera downloading captured video at full speed. There was also no communication break between the mount and computer. I wondered if this setup would work during longer observing sessions. (It didn't. Camera downloads were frequently slow in subsequent sessions.)

The following 3-image mosaic, made with a 2X Barlow lens, shows prominent features in the Sun's western hemisphere on April 21st. Double umbra sunspot 2325 is at lower left. Sunspot group 2324 is above 2325. Sunspot 2326 is on the right among filaments. A loop prominence is faintly seen lower to the right of 2326.

Nice prominences along the western limb can be seen in the next 2-image mosaic where disc features are overexposed in order to reveal the dimmer prominences, particularly the bottom one.

A magnified view of the lower prominence, associated with departing sunspot 2322, reveals a loop structure.

Sunspot 2327 sat in isolation near center on the solar disc with a small magnetic dipole to its right.

It would have been nice to make a time lapse movie of the loop prominence, but there were too many clouds drifting past the Sun, and it was too late in the afternoon.