The Sun Through Haze

Nice Filaprom!

Observing conditions have been awful for the past five weeks. When clouds finally cleared, and winds diminished in early June, it looked like a clear window might open for a few days. Unfortunately, Canadian wildfire smoke drifted overhead making the sky milky white and hazy. On the afternoon of June 3rd some version of blue sky seemed to develop, so I rushed outside with my solar telescope. The smoke plume had moved mostly east of my location (red dot) as you can see in the following satellite view.

Normally, I prefer to use my telescope before noon when temperatures are mild and seeing is best. On June 3rd I didn't begin imaging until 4:00 pm when it was near 90 uncomfortable degrees. Seeing was surprisingly good in spite of the heat.

Only two substantial sunspot groups were present near the Sun's western edge as you can see in the next 4-panel mosaic. 

The upper collection of four umbras, now numbered 4100, was a long-lasting sunspot group now nearing the end of its third trip across the Sun's Earth facing disc! It was first seen in late April when it was given the number 4055 during its first appearance. On the second trip across it was numbered 4079. So this is quite a long-lasting sunspot! Below 4100 is the double umbra of sunspot 4099. Both groups can be seen in good detail when you enlarge the next cropped image.

In addition to sunspots a magnificent "filaprom" was present on the northeastern limb. Dark filaments on the solar disc float above underlying surface and appear as prominences when viewed on the limb. This "filaprom" shows the transition from prominence to filament as solar rotation brings it around the eastern limb.

The next inverted image highlights the floating, cloud-like filament. 

Other prominences appear on the eastern limb in the next 5-panel mosaic.

I darkened background level in the previous image to make the sky look uniformly black. Unfortunately, this always removes fine detail from limb activity. You can see this increased detail in the next image which includes the bothersome background noise as well.

I always regret losing limb detail when removing background noise. You can see the effect in the next two images of a prominence on the lower western limb. The darkened image is first, and the unaltered image is second.

By the end of this somewhat frantic imaging session I was sweating heavily and exhausted. Heat drains me. Looks like persistent clouds  will move in again for the next weeks ahead.

 
 
 

Magnificent Morning Run

The Beautiful Greensprings Trail

Morning running conditions on May10th were perfect! Temperature ranged from 58 to 62 degrees, humidity was low, and pleasant gentle breezes ruffled leaves. The smell of honeysuckle lingered in the air and patches of sunlight danced on the trail and trees.

I'm so fortunate to have the beautiful Greensprings Trail only a short distance from my front door. As you can see above, the trail surface is hard-packed crushed stone. It's nearly as fine as beach sand, but not as soft.

The trail runs through generally low-lying land, and includes several short wooden bridges over damp sections. 

The Greensprings Trail is also the largest portion of Jamestown High School's cross country course where Jamestown's powerful district and regional championship teams compete.

On this lovely morning some deer appeared close by the trail.

Just a few meters to the left along this part of trail was a field of winter wheat ripening in the morning sun.

Back on the trail again after the brief wheat field detour, some holly trees bordered the path.

A bit more than a mile along, the trail enters a drier wooded section.

A short journey on the VA Capital Trail is required to close the Greensprings loop. This long wooden bridge is a favorite spot for birdwatchers and photographers.

About 100 meters along the bridge pictured above the Greensprings Trail exits to the right and heads toward another narrower bridge spanning wetlands. 

Midway along this narrow bridge is a sightseeing location yielding an open view of a pond often home to geese and ducks. The pond is part of a complex created by beaver dams. Part of one dam can be seen in the foreground. Park rangers recently opened this dam near the location of the two vertical posts on the right. I don't know why they thought this was necessary.

On this day some turtles were sunning on soggy logs.

Exiting the sightseeing bridge, the trail turns to the right and  reenters woods.

About a half mile further I came upon a group of birdwatchers enthusiastically pointing telephoto lenses up into the trees. I asked what they were viewing. "There's an owl!", they said. It took me a few seconds to spot the owl through leafy foreground. Can you spot it in the next picture?

During the previous few weeks I saw many birdwatchers stopping near this location. They told me about a nest containing baby owls. Eventually, a generous area beneath the nest was roped off so people wouldn't disturb the nesting site. I never could locate the nest, especially without my glasses. But on this glorious morning I did wear glasses and carried a new phone along on my run. The owl presented a good opportunity to try new magnification capabilities of the phone camera. The next picture was the best magnified owl image, but there's no substitute for a telephoto lens on a DSLR camera. Looks like the owl doesn't approve.

Birdwatchers pointed out another owl nearby which they claimed was one of the "babies". This owl seems to have its head rotated 180 degrees to look at me over its back!

A few steps beyond the owl viewing I came across several tiny black toads hopping across the path. 

Soon the trail entered a drier section.

Another right turn and the trail entered a wide final section heading home towards the end of my run. 

Just a few days after this magnificent morning the annual plague of biting flies began. They make running miserable by bouncing off my head and biting my back, shoulders, head, and neck. Sadly, I won't be able to enjoy this trail again until October when the fly plague ends.




 

Using Seestar's AI Denoise

Smoother Background, Sharper Stars

One of the great things about Seestar is the continual improvement of its capabilities. The mosaic/framing mode allows larger fields of view, and the AI Denoise feature significantly improves image quality. I'm usually a little late discovering these new features, but when I eventually get around to using them, I'm quite impressed.

I recently tried AI Denoise for the first time on April 28th. It smoothed and darkened background sky and sharpened star images. The first image below shows the effect. It's a 10-minute exposure of globular cluster M107 in Ophiuchus. (Enlarge all images for the best view.)

Here's a GIF animation to show the effect of AI Denoise on the noisy original M107 image. Notice how cluster stars become sharper. (I also used Photoshop to adjust background darkness.)

Next, close interacting galaxy pair NGC4490 and NGC4485 in Canes Venatici are nicely visible in the following 60-minute exposure. AI Denoise brought out detail in distorted spiral NGC4490 on the right. The two galaxies are separated by about 3.5 arc minutes.

Finally, the next image is a 60-minute exposure of Hickson Compact Group 44 in Leo. Galaxy NGC3190 is in group center with smaller distorted s-shaped galaxy NGC3187 to its right. Elliptical galaxy NGC3183 is on top and small spiral NGC3185 is at bottom. AI Denoise made faint s-shaped arms of NGC3187 stand out clearly against the background. Examine the enlarged image to see this better.

Here's another animated GIF to illustrate how AI Denoise improved the Hickson 44 image.

After seeing these initial results I anticipated applying AI Denoise to many other Seestar images taken over the past year. Unfortunately, this turned out to be impossible because I had deleted the original FITS files from my laptop and Seestar itself. AI Denoise needs access to original stacked FITS files in order to carry out its magic.

The M107 image above adds one more to my Messier collection bringing the total number captured to 103. Only 7 more to go!

Late April Sun

Sunspots, Filaments, and Prominences

The first clear day after more than a month of clouds dawned on April 28th. During my solar observing session winds were light, and temperature ranged between 66 and 68 degrees. Conditions were nearly ideal.

A mysterious glitch initially made my laptop unable to connect to the telescope mount. The normal USB mount-to-computer communication port had somehow been changed. Who knows why annoying stuff like this happens? After 20 minutes reading equipment manuals I was able to establish a connection and proceed with setup.

This time of year clover mites abound. These tiny red bugs swarm over my backyard patio and garden walls. Inevitably, they end up crawling all over equipment cases. It's a mistake to squash them because they leave a red stain for every kill. I ended up sweeping them off with a Swiffer duster before bringing equipment back inside.

Giant impressive sunspots were missing on April 28th. Only one major dark umbra is visible in the slightly imperfect 12-panel disk mosaic shown next. Some nice filaments appear, including two just rotating into view on the left solar limb.

All visible sunspots can be seen in the cropped center portion of the previous mosaic. The next image can be enlarged to full size by clicking on it. The enlarged image shows nice detail because seeing was good. Biggest sunspot 4076 is above and left of center. Tiny sunspot 4077 is left of center. Sunspot 4072, featuring extremely dim twin umbras, is below center. Sunspot pair 4070 is in the lower right corner.

The next close view of sunspot 4076 with spectacular sinuous filament on the right also shows great detail when enlarged to full size.

Now let's look at some prominences. Image processing reveals prominence locations on the imperfect disk mosaic previously shown above. There are two on the right limb and one on the upper left limb. Once again, enlarging the image shows these features better.

The largest arch-shaped prominence was impressive!

A spiked-shaped prominence and neighboring limb activity showed emissions above giant emerging sunspot 4079 on the upper left limb.

A small spike prominence shot off the lower right limb.

More than a week of upcoming cloudy weather will prevent solar observing in the near future.

Mosaic/Framing Mode

Seestar Wide Fields

I'm enjoying Seestar's mosaic/framing mode lately. It's fun to roam the sky looking for opportunities to capture more than one celestial target in a single image frame. For example, galaxy M108 and colorful planetary nebula M97 appear together in the first image below. These two are separated by 48.25 arc minutes in Ursa Major. M97, a member of our own Milky Way, is in the foreground 1,700 light years away. M108 is 32 million light years distant, well beyond the Milky Way. This image, made on March 18th, is the result of 60 minutes of accumulated exposure time.

It takes much longer than 60 minutes for Seestar to actually collect 360 acceptable individual 10-second frames needed to produce the eventual 60-minute exposure. Many individual frames are rejected due to poor tracking during image capture. While using mosaic/framing mode I can usually make only one image before Seestar's battery is drained. It might take 3 to 4 hours to produce an acceptable final image, so I settle for one target per night. The beautiful thing about Seestar is how it runs successfully for 3 to 4 hours without need for personal attention. I can watch TV or read a book while interesting images accumulate.

On March 26th another entire evening was devoted to capturing (from top to bottom) galaxies M82, M81, and NGC3077. The angular separation between M82 at top and NGC3077 on bottom is 1.15 degrees. In this 90-minute exposure I should have centered the image better and moved M81 further from the edge.

On March 22nd I made another attempt to capture Markarian's Chain in Virgo. This time I made a larger field of view than a previous attempt in order to include more galaxies. The field width here is about 1.7 degrees. The next 76-minute exposure includes 23 galaxies! Some are tiny and dim. (Enlarge the image by clicking on it to see them more clearly). 23 galaxies are identified in the labeled image below. The Hubble Deep Field this is not, but it's pretty amazing for a tiny 50mm telescope in my back yard!

Leo was my next target on March 27th. Five galaxies appear in the following 60-minute exposure. On top, from left to right, are galaxies NGC3389, NGC3384, and M105 in a tight triangle. Below, from top to bottom, are galaxies M96 and M95. The angular separation between the uppermost galaxy and M95 on the bottom is about 1.3 degrees.

I was disappointed by the relatively bright sky background in the previous image, so I made a second attempt on April 16th. This time I chose a smaller field of view and tried a 90-minute exposure. In the next image M95 is not included, and the angular distance between the uppermost galaxy and M96 is about 48.3 arc minutes. The sky background does look slightly darker, but I wonder if 30 minutes extra exposure time really made a huge difference.

I'll continue to look for other wide field targets in the future.
 

Breezy March Sun

Afternoon Session

Good opportunities for solar observing are rare. I have to take advantage of each one, even if conditions aren't ideal. Such was the case on March 18th when gusty wind threatened to blow my laptop light shield box off the observing table. Wind speed diminished a bit in the afternoon, so I risked poor seeing and began imaging at 3:15 pm, EDT.

Several sunspots and filaments were distributed across the solar disc as you can see in the 11-panel mosaic below.

Significant prominences were located only in the lower right quadrant displayed in the next 7-panel mosaic.

Individual sunspot groups show well in the next two close views. First, single umbra sunspot 4030 appears near center. Curious, dim, triple umbra sunspot 4028 is to the lower right. (Click on images for a larger view.) The enlarged image shows a complex of magnetic arches to the upper left of sunspot 4030. The triple umbra in 4028 resembles a dog face!

The second close view shows a diagonal string of complicated sunspot structure above center. Running from upper left to lower right along the diagonal line are sunspots 4031, 4025, and 4022. Solitary umbra 4021 is below center. 

These images look unexpectedly decent in spite of episodic periods of bad seeing.