Clear Sky Continues

Nice Prominence Display

As mentioned in the previous blog, I spent several hours on the evening of September 15th capturing 233 individual images of various celestial objects. With much of my equipment left outside, I stumbled into bed at 1:40 AM on September 16th. Clear sky persisted into the morning of the 16th. I dragged myself out of bed after too few sleeping hours and went for a run. Then I hustled outside to image the morning Sun while good conditions continued. Equipment accumulated dew overnight which I dried off with towels. Mounting my solar telescope took less time than usual because more than half the equipment was already outside.

Not many dramatic sunspots were visible, but some nice prominences were displayed around the solar limb. The next image, a mosaic of the central disc, shows the only sunspots present. Sunspot 3433 is on the left. The other sunspot pair has small umbras. Spots 3434 on the left and 3429 on the right are connected by a white, energy emitting structure. A long dramatic dark filament stretches out in the upper right. (Click on images to enlarge.)

The following 11-panel mosaic, shows the relative lack of disc features.

Although disc features may have been sparse, there were a good number of prominences around the limb. Some are shown in the next mosaic which has been processed to reveal prominences.

An arched prominence appeared on the Sun's northern limb.

The southeastern limb had some spiky emissions from an emerging sunspot.

Finally, an enormous arching prominence with one explosive spike was displayed on the southwestern limb.

By the time this solar imaging session was over I was completely exhausted. Forecasts predicted cloudy skies for the next two weeks, so I appreciated the chance to take advantage of rare clear sky.