Sunspot Show Continues

Better Weather Conditions

On June 8th skies cleared and temperature moderated. Conditions were much better than my previous sweat soaked solar observing session on June 6th! With occasional light breezes, low humidity, and temperature ranging from the mid 60's to mid 70's, the sky was cloud free most of the time. I was able to begin imaging at about 9:00 am and had time to try different combinations of cameras and Barlow lenses.

The next image is an imperfect 8-image mosaic of the whole solar disk made with my ZWO 174 monochrome camera and a 2X Barlow lens. There are some blurry sections and vertical bands visible. Sunspot 2765 has not quite rotated halfway across the Sun. A small fuzzy filament is present near bottom center. You can see how featureless the Sun is except for the solitary sunspot and minor filament. (Please click on each of the following images to enlarge them for the best detailed view.)

A sharper, closer view of the sunspot and filament is next. This is from a single video clip instead of a mosaic.

The next two images show good detail in the sunspot itself. The first image was made with the ZWO 174 camera together with a 5X Barlow lens.

Next is the sunspot recorded by a ZWO 1600 camera with a 2X Barlow lens. For this image I restricted the full frame recording to a limited region of interest including only the sunspot.

Finally, I used the ZWO 1600 camera with 2X Barlow lens to construct the following imperfect 2-image mosaic of prominences around the Sun's rim. I still haven't discovered a way to exhibit prominence details without accompanying noisy haze around the limb.

This observing session was only my second attempt in seven months. I'm still a bit rusty on procedures and methods. For example, when using a 2X Barlow lens I forgot its larger field of view prevents taking a flat field on the central solar disk. Consequently, I couldn't remove vertical bands present in the whole disk mosaic above. I also discovered there were no dust spots visible while using the 2X Barlow, but they were visible when using the 5X Barlow. So the dirt is in my 5X Barlow, not in the cameras or telescope. I seem to get the best detail with a 5X Barlow, so I either need to figure out how to clean the Barlow, or I need to buy a new 5X Barlow.
  

New Sunspot Cycle

Finally! A Decent Sunspot!

My solar telescope has been idle since last November's transit of Mercury. The Sun's Earth-facing surface has been spotless roughly 80 percent of the time over the past two years as the sunspot cycle minimum seems to go on forever. Recently, a few tiny sunspots have appeared with magnetic polarity indicating they belong in a new increasing sunspot cycle. On June 6 the first decent-sized sunspot of the new cycle had rotated into view. I was able to capture a quick image during a rapidly closing window of clear sky in gaps between clouds.

There was no wind as I set up my equipment, but clouds were increasing. I was soon soaked in sweat by the 89-degree humid conditions. There was time to record only three video clips before the window of clear sky between clouds closed. Unfortunately, the race to beat clouds made it impossible to fix the tilt adjuster and eliminate circular interference rings which appear in the image below.

Here is the best image of sunspot 2765 from three available candidates. The sunspot area shows good detail.

There was no time to make fine adjustments or capture more video frames. I had hoped to experiment with different cameras and Barlow lenses, but this was impossible. Being a bit out of practice with telescope setup didn't help.

I hope it won't be another seven months before my next solar imaging session.