Monday, May 20, 2019

Solar Imaging Session - May 20, 2019

The sky this afternoon is very hazy and seeing condition is poor. Since there is a huge Hedgerow prominence visible in the SW limb, i still proceeded to image it despite the condition using a modest smaller scope Borg 76ED refractor instead of our regular TV-101 refractor.

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Lunar Imaging Session - May 19, 2019

The sky this evening is cloudy and I was able to image the Full Moon or Flower Moon with my son before clouds covered up the entire sky and brought in rain as well. Image was taken using Canon EOS M6 Mirror less Camera on Borg 76ED refractor at prime focus mounted on a Vixen Porta II mount at 1/1000sec exposure at ISO 200.

Friday, May 17, 2019

Solar Imaging Session - May 17, 2019

The sky this afternoon is again very variable as fair seeing condition come and go. AR2741 Sunspot Group is nearing the western limb and flaring activity on the group has also mellowed down. The huge NW prominence yesterday has decayed but still a bit nice to view faintly.

Thursday, May 16, 2019

Solar Imaging Session - May 16, 2019

The sky this afternoon is clear and seeing condition is fair. But I become cautious due to last sessions Fire Capture flaw that reduce my image resolution to 300x300 without me noticing it. So before I start out, I make sure all is okay before I start capturing AR2741 Sunspot Group both in Ha and white light wavelength. Also, due to my low contrast capture of prominence in the past, I decided to change my tuner setting this afternoon and compare it to my regular settings and the contrast enhancement was very big with even the surface features on AR2741 Sunspot Group becomes more contrasty. Prominence also become more pronounce as well. I will be using the new Ha setting from now on and hope it stays that way.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Solar Imaging Session - May 14, 2019

The sky this afternoon is clear but seeing is very weird on the start of my session as I cant seem to get any contrast and hard to focus on both Ha and white light for no apparent reason. As I try to figure out the problem , I got to even burn an eyepiece cap due to frustration on the problem as I forgot to remove it from the barlow and it quickly burn the plastic fast as I try to figure out why there is no image coming out of my laptop screen, Good thing, it was a short spell or else I could have melted rubber drip on my star diagonal! And to top it all up, my imaging data are all garbage because I didn't notice my Fire Capture software was acting up and it automatically set itself up to a small 300x300 image resolution! Its a good thing, I was able to restart the laptop again and it got back to normal and I got a decent Ha image of AR2741 Sunspot Group only and lost my data on the huge Hedgerow prominence as well as got a very low resolution white light image of the sunspot group. Sigh! Fight another day :)

Monday, May 13, 2019

Solar Imaging Session - May 13, 2019

The sky this afternoon is clear and seeing condition is very good. AR2741 Sunspot Group is still a joy to view and image specially in Ha wavelength while AR2740 Sunspot Group is decaying very fast. There are 2 large eruptive prominence visible in the SE and NW limb. I had a great time observing and imaging with my son this afternoon as he starts to get a little interest in solar imaging as well by doing his first white light solar images of AR2741 Sunspot Group in Full Diak as well as moderate closeup with his Canon 500D.

Saturday, May 11, 2019

Solar Imaging Session - May 11, 2019

The sky this afternoon is partly cloudy while seeing condition is still ok. AR2741 Sunspot Group is still consistent in size while the flaring activity beside the group is still there. AR2740 Sunspot Group, on the other hand, is decaying fast compare to yesterday's size. There is also a nice large eruptive prominence in the NW limb but I got clouded out and has to packed up as rain cloud started to cover and dim the sky.

Friday, May 10, 2019

Solar Imaging Session - May 10, 2019

The sky this afternoon is almost clear and seeing condition is good. There are 2 sunspot groups visible on the solar disk namely AR2740 and 2741 sunspot groups. In Ha, AR2741 Sunspot Group is showing good flaring activity while AR2740 Sunspot Group is quiet. Both groups show nice details in white light as well. I was also able to get a full disk shot of the Sun in white light too.
I also try to apply color on the solar set I made today. Thanks Mike Garbett for the color advise. Thanks!