Solar Imaging Session - November 9, 2008

Hello:

This morning, the Sky was a bit hazy but I was still able to see the Sun through the haze so I proceed to setup. While scanning the limb of the Sun, I was able to see a nice eruptive prominence that was bright. As I image the prominence, I carefully check again on the rest of the solar limb and saw another fainter prominence that was almost invisible from visual view. Nevertheless, I image both of them amid bad seeing and thick haze and they can be viewed below:

Solar Imaging Session - November 4, 2008

Hello:

The sky this morning was again hazy but I still proceeded in imaging the Sun. From my computer monitor, there were several prominences again but image was really poor and soft. Nevertheless, I still image them as viewed below:

Solar Imaging Session - November 2, 2008

Hello:

After coming home from a tiring stargazing session at Caliraya, I saw the sky was a bit clear so I setup my PST-Ha to check out the Sun. Although there is some haze hovering on the Sun, I was able to see around 3 prominences at the limb of the Sun. SO before I got covered up by the darn clouds, I was able to image it. Seeing though was a bit poor :(

Deep Sky Imaging Session at Caliraya - November 1-2, 2008

Hello:

Last November 1, I went with Vincent Lao to Caliraya at around 6:00pm to have a stargazing session there amid a bad weather outlook .When we reach Caliraya at around 9:00pm, lady luck seems to run out on us as we were greeted with hard rain ! Since we were already there, we both decided to wait for a while and hope the rain will stop. At around 10:30pm, the eastern sky started to break up and we were able to see Orion rising majestically. Unfortunately, mild shower was still present that time and was still trying to ruin our session :( With the hard rain comes a very muddy observing site , I initially plan to quit the session because the telescope tripod will surely sink into the mud but seeing Vincent still enjoying binocular viewing of the beautiful sky, we decided to stick around more and after searching for a lesser muddy area , we setup our scopes at around 11:30pm after the rain finally comes to a stop.

I brought along a TV-101 refractor on Vixen GP-DX mount while Vincent brought his new Orion Starblast 4.5" reflector on EQ-1 mount. With a compromise area, the view of the sky was not perfect as some parts of the sky from South to Southwest were block by tall trees. The original observing area that we regularly setup before were under the water. For me, I was a bit disappointed on the weather because the unexpected early heavy rain doused cold water on my original imaging plans for the night :( So i opted instead to image old favorites such as Orion Nebula, Pleiades star cluster, and California Nebula. Vincent , on the other hand, image M35, Double Cluster, constellation Orion,and Beehive cluster.

I was also able to observe several Orionids meteor shower and lots of sporadics as well. The night was not that perfect though as there were 2 mild rains that pour on us in the morning :(

We were able to observe till around 4:30am before the sky started to brighten already. Before we started to dismantle our scopes, we had a group picture taken before packing up our equipment. As we were dismantling our scopes, they were able to observe beautiful crepuscular rays as the Sun was starting to rise .

Despite the disappointing sky and muddy conditions in the early evening, both of us were happy and satisfied. It has really been a long time since we had a successful observing session and we were really grateful for taking our chances .

Below are the images that I took at Caliraya using my TV-101 refractor at prime focus with Canon 300D on Vixen GP-D mount. EFL= 864mm f/5.4.

M42 Great Orion Nebula in Orion
24mins at ISO 1600
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M45 Pleiades Star Cluster in Taurus

20 mins at ISO 1600
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NGC1499 California Nebula in Perseus
21 mins at ISO 1600

Solar Imaging Session - October 30, 2008

Hello:

Weather again is horrible this morning. I miss the Sun too much already to the poit that even if the sky this morning was hazy, I still try to image the Sun! That's how crazy I am on the Sun :) LOL Nevertheless, I was able to see some nice eruptive prominences around the limb although the image are generally soft from what I got. Anyway, the prominences can still be seen softly below:

Solar Imaging Session - October 19, 2008

Hello:

My computer crashed right after I image the Sun last October 19, 2o08 and was only able to get back my computer this saturday for me to process and share the result. Image was not that good that morning because of thick haze present when I was imaging the Sun. Nevertheless, one can still see numerous smalla nd medium sized eruptive prominence around the Sun's limb.

Solar Imaging Session - October 17, 2008 (Bye Bye AR 1006 Sunspot Group)

Hello:

I was able to get s small window of open sky for me to check on the AR1005 Sunspot Group. Unfortunately, there was haze present in the morning and it softens the image much that I didn't saw the AR1005 but instead got another image of a small group AR1006 exiting the western limb. Even wth the haze, the group was still easy to view because of its high brightness.

Image taken using ATK-1HS II webcam on Coronado PST and the final image can be viewed below: