Solar Imaging Session - November 8, 2011 (AR11339 Sunspot Group & Large Eruptive Prominence ! )

The sky this morning was again initially cloudy and but at around 7:30am, sky partly clear again but seeing condition is not that good. I quickly image the Sun through Ha wavelength first and the NE quadrant is a beautiful area to observe as lot of activities and dark filaments near the AR11341, AR11342 and AR11343 region. Adding a large eruptive prominence and huge AR11339 sunspot group in the view was a sight to behold! AR11338 Sunspot Group is in the SW quadrant already and can be seen with a nice moderate sized eruptive prominence.

As I setup for white light wavelength, I started to image AR11339 Sunspot Group and I notice it has stretched in length as expected and the width of the group has also narrowed down a bit. So far, I can estimate that AR11339 Sunspot Group is just about the same length only as previous large AR11302 Sunspot Group. But I think the best time for me to estimate AR11339 Sunspot Group's maximum length and size is to compare today's image as well as tomorrow's image to get the average size of the group.

After I image the group, skies started to deteriorate and it affected most of the white light images I image afterwards. But I try to salvage and extract the most out of what I can squeezed out from the AVIs.

As I was trying to take full disk shot of the Sun, thick clouds rolled in before I can prepare and was only able to take a single frame which include small part of the Sun's disk getting clip off :(

Solar Imaging Session - November 7, 2011 (9 Sunspot Groups & Numerous Dark Filaments !)

The sky this early morning was cloudy and I thought this will be another frustrating day for me to image huge AR11339 Sunspot Group in high res again! As I went back to bed to get more rest, I saw some sunlight finally coming through the window at around 8:00am and i quickly jump out of my bed and quickly setup the PST-Ha and start imaging the Sun. AR11339 Sunspot Group, although huge in size is not that super active in its core group in Ha light although one can see some small flares inside the group though. Overshadowed by AR11339 in attention is AR11338 Sunspot Group which shows more solar activity inside its core than AR11339. AR11337 is very silent and small AR11334 Sunspot Group is already departing near the western limb. 3 new sunspot groups namely AR11341,11342 and 11343 Sunspot Groups are coming out from the NNE limb and shows some promising activity in the region. Several beautiful small dark filaments surround the new groups in the NNE limb while another thick dark filament can be seen above AR11337 Sunspot Group. A long fainter dark filament can also be seen in the SE limb near AR11340 Sunspot Group. A moderate sized looped eruptive prominence can be seen near eastern limb near AR11340 as well.

In white light wavelength, of course the center of attraction is on huge AR11339 Sunspot groups which is more or less around 100,000kms end to end in length. I'm looking forward to observing this group the next 2-3 days so I can compare its length to recent big groups AR11302 and AR11330. IMHO, I think the only advantages of AR11339 compared to the 2 mentioned groups is its large penumbra; region. In length, I think it is not that far off from the 2 said groups but since it haven't yet cross the central meridian of the Sun yet, we can't still determine the full length of this group till the next 2 days. I know trying to compare it to the said groups this early is unfair :) LOL

Anyway, as for the rest of the other sunspot groups, there are 9 sunspot groups on the solar disk now! A small undesignated sunspot group east of AR11338 sunspot group will probably be designated AR11344 if it continues to develop IMHO. New AR11341 and AR11342 Sunspot Groups are also big in size and I feel it will be at least as big as AR11338 Sunspot Groups in the days to come as it comes out of the NNE limb :0

Overall, I'm happy today with the results of my solar imaging session as I was able to get both white light and Ha wavelength images :)

Solar Imaging Session - November 5, 2011

The sky this morning is once again super cloudy and I was again frustrated not being able to image AR11339 and AR11338 for the 3rd day! But at around 11:15am, some breaks in the clouds give me an opportunity to try to image them so I setup my white light system . There are 5 sunspot group still visible on the Sun disk with newcomer possible AR11440 coming in from the SE limb. AR11339 Sunspot Group obviously dominate the show today.

But since the Sun is almost again near my main roof obstruction again, I was only able to buy time to just being able to image full disk shot only. Afterwards, clouds started to roll in hard and even rain hard! :(I hope to be able to image it tomorrow so that I can make a comparison size between my other high res solar shots to determine how it fares against them but this is a very good and photogenic group indeed!

Solar Imaging Session - November 3, 2011 (Desperately Seeking Sunspots!)

The sky this morning was super cloudy but since I was expecting to get even a small glimpse of the 2 new large sunspot groups namely AR11339 in NE limb and AR11338 in the SE limb, I desperately setup my scope and waited whole morning to try my luck :0

At around 8:30am, some small thinning of the clouds on the Sun had me desperately trying to capture it through fast passing clouds that will surely test one's patience and while i was able to get a very short AVI shot, rain started to drizzle and shut the sky down again.

I was able to get a short video clip for processing and at least it show the 2 big groups as well as 2 smaller groups AR11336 and AR11337 plus some nice groups of eruptive prominence through cloudy sky! Not good but still OK IMHO.

Solar Imaging Session - November 1, 2011 (Large SE Eruptive Prominence)

The sky this morning was not good as lots of passing clouds and seeing condition is also not that good as well. AR11330 Sunspot Group is decaying a lot and is also near the eastern limb :(n AR11334 Sunspot Group's high solar activity seems to mellow down today even from Ha wavelength. There is also a large eruptive prominence in the SE limb together with the huge dark filament that I was able to see yesterday. Lots of small prominences are also visible around the solar limb.

Rest of the small groups are very quiet as well. I was only also able to image AR11330 Sunspot Group in white light through passing clouds thus image not that good but I still image it to show how much it has decayed :( Thick clouds then covered the sky so I had to end my short solar imaging session this morning and I also need to go to my dad's tomb to give some offerings as today is All Soul's Day. I miss you Dad very much!

Jupiter Imaging Session - October 31, 2011 ( Jupiter with Great Red Spot )

The sky tonight was partly clear with fair seeing condition. I setup the scope and try to observe and image Jupiter with Great Red Spot near Central Meridian. The GRS plume is still visible as well as 2 red barge visible on the North Equatorial Belt (NEB) region .

I took several AVIs and select the best of tonight's batch which can be viewed below:

Solar Imaging Session - October 31, 2011 (Growing AR11334 & Lots of Large Dark Filaments !))

The sky this morning is clear but seeing condition is not good. AR11330 Sunspot Group continues to decay but is still the biggest group on the Sun. AR11334 Sunspot Group is growing fast and needs to be observe for more activity in the days to come. 2 new not yet designated sunspot groups are visible on the Sun's disk with the one above AR11334 I think will probably be designated as AR11335 while the one on the eastern limb might be designated AR11336 :)

There are lots of large dark filaments on the Sun with the biggest is a faint huge one on the SE quadrant while another one that is big and prominent is the one on the NE quadrant.

Solar prominences are not that big today but one very interesting group of eruptive prominence can be seen near the north limb :)

There are a total of 7 sunspot groups that is visible on the Sun today :)