Category: plage

Plages come, Plages Go…

White Light and H-Alpha Sun - June 30, 2012
White Light and H-Alpha Sun – June 30, 2012

An exciting day under the Sun. Observing with both a Coronado PST h-alpha & white light 8” Dob fitted with a 3.5” solar filter. Sketches were made at the eyepiece(s).

Seeing was good to excellent. After sketching details of the 4 sunspot groups I could readily see with the PST, I noticed one of the plages (bright spots) on the 1513 sunspot brightening intensely. As it brightened the bottom portion (to the South) of the plage developed a greenish/blue hued widening irregularity. There was also a linear band that extended from the widening directly to the center of sunspot 1513. Above the sunspot there appeared a filament which I tried to capture as well in my sketch. Within 5 minutes the dark patch was gone. From some research and asking more experienced friends, I believe I witnessed a solar flare, probably a minor one but still very exciting. I have been observing with the PST for over a month now, but this was a first for me. The plages around all the major sunspots continued to brighten & fade during the observation period, but none to the intensity of 1513. The PST was loaned to me by a friend after my excitement over white light observing. It’s a wonderful instrument showing many features of the Sun not evident in white light solar filters.

Solar prominences on the limb were also detailed today with the larger one appearing as somewhat of a vortex shape, while another more north prominence appeared as a broken loop. I had observed yesterday & did not see this broken loop then.

I moved to white light observing & could see much greater detail in all the sunspots, including many that did not show up well with the PST.

White light filters are primarily for observing details of the photosphere (like sunspots, facule & granulation), where h-alpha narrow bandwidth shows detail in the chromosphere. The chromosphere or “sphere of color” is the second of the three main layers in the Suns atmosphere and is roughly 2,000 kilometers deep. It sits just above the photosphere, and below the corona.

I am in love with the ever changing face of the sun. I am sometimes tired at night by the time the sky clears but the morning is always mine!

Coronado PST 40mm
9mm Plossl 44X

8” Dob w/ masked 3.5” Astro Baader Solar filter (homemade)
25mm Plossl 48X

4,000 ft elevation
Maui, Hawaii

Aloha!

(Cyn) Thia Krach

Solar h-alpha, Prominences – May 3, 2012

H-Alpha Sun - Full Disc - May 3, 2012
H-Alpha Sun - Full Disc - May 3, 2012

2012 05 03, 1845 UT – 2130 UT.
Solar h-alpha, Prominences and NOAAs 1469, 1471, 1472, 1473, 1474.

PCW Memorial Observatory, Texas – Erika Rix,
Temp: 33°C, winds SE 7 mph, occasional light cirrus,
Seeing: Wilson 2-3, Transparency: 4/6, 50x,
DS 60mm Maxscope, LXD75, Baader Planetarium Hyperion 8-24mm Mark III .

Sketch created scope-side with black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.

With five active regions, the Sun made quite an appearance today in spite of the limb. There were a few decent prominences, especially to the eastern hemisphere. My favorite view, though, were magnetic fields surrounding 1471 made apparent by the very thin active region filaments (ARFs). They reached down like fingers from the sunspots in that region. Plage was very intricate and meshed into what I believe was AR 1472.

The quiet region filaments (QRFs) were in abundance in the southern northern hemisphere with a few speckled to the south. AR 1474 seemed a bit washed out with plage and faint darkened areas. There was only slight plage definition and no sunspots observed in h-alpha. I didn’t set up a white light filter today for comparison.

1473 and 1469 were blended together by the plage and many lines of ARFs, including filaments reaching out over the edge for short, bright prominences. Plage was very bright, forming the shape of a tuning fork in 1469. These were impressive sets of active regions when paired up.

This was my first solar observing session since moving to Texas about two and a half weeks ago. With all that took place in preparing the old house for sale and the move to Texas, I’ve been deprived of any observing other than naked eye. It was a relief to be behind an eyepiece once again.

H-Alpha Sun - Prominence - May 3, 2012
H-Alpha Sun - Prominence - May 3, 2012

The Sun Over Nagykanizsa

Hi!

The data of drawing: 07.Jun.2011.
Telescope : Colorado PST.
Observing Location: Nagykanizsa – Hungary, Canis Maior Sun Observatory
(www.nae.hu)

Today I’ve made a h-alpha sketch through with Colorado PST H-Alpha
telescope. The drawing is made between 8:00 an 10:00 UT from
Nagykanizsa Canis Maior Sun Observatory , using a red pastel pencil on
black paper.

The weather was bad. The sky was cloudy. Sun only 1-3 happened upon lawsuits up.
I was not able to finish a drawing. The clouds did not allow it. I
managed to prepare a digital scheme it redrawing.

This digital drawing preparated GIMP 2.6 programs, based on a pastel sketch.

Thank you for it!

Clear Sky !

Tamas Bognar

http://tamasasztro.blogspot.com
http://tamasfoto.blogspot.com/

skype : bognartamas
msn : bognart@gmail.com

New Active Region

2011 05 09, 1429UT-1550UT
Solar NOAA 11203, 11204, ??, 11209, 11208

www.pcwobservatory.com

PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA – Erika Rix
DS 60mm Maxscope, LXD75, 21-7mm Zhumell, ETX70 AT w/tilt plate and white light glass filter.

All sketches done scopeside and flipped in Photoshop to match standard orientation. H-alpha sketch created with black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil. White light sketch created on photocopy paper with 0.5mm mechanical pencil and #2 pencil.

Transparency made it nearly impossible to view prominences at the start of the session with the thin layer of cirrus creating a milky white sky. There were small breaks that allowed me to sketch in some of the detail on a western prominence, that later as the transparency improved, showed an abundance of thin whispy structure that wasn’t captured on paper. By that time, I was already working on a full disk sketch in h-alpha. Seeing was terrific until I started on the white light observation, but had I set up the ETX at the beginning of the session to let the scope adjust to the warmth, it would have been much better by the time I observed with it. As it was, I observed in the observatory for protection of the wind as I view with a shade attached to the objective and wanted to avoid vibration.

There is a possible new active region between 1209 and 1208 that, while observing in white light, had several little spots forming an elliptical shape with pointed ends like a football. I noticed facula around 1208, but the seeing was so bad that I couldn’t make out a definite shape. The umbra of the preceding spot in that region was displaced, as was the preceding spot in 1203. I didn’t notice any sunspots in 1209 during my observation, but that may have been the result of the seeing.

The band of active regions is still putting on a nice show in h-alpha with more-defined plage around them.

Sunspots and Proms, Filaments and Plage

2011 03 08, 1703 UT – 1945 UT
Solar h-alpha, NOAAs 11164, 11165, 11166, 11169, prominence sequence 240 pa (11165)

PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA – Erika Rix
www.pcwobservatory.com
Temp: 16.8°C, Humidity 34%, SE winds 8mph
Seeing: Wilson 3.5 w/moments of 1, Transparency: 1-2/6
Alt: 44.5°- 36.4°, Az: 168.1°- 221.1°

DS 60mm Maxscope, LXD75, 21-7mm Zhumell

H-alpha sketch created scopeside with black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.

It was a nice surprise to see the Sun out and the thin clouds scattered enough for a solar session, especially with 4 active regions present. I didn’t pull out a white light filter. It certainly would have made a great comparison to the h-alpha views with all the sunspots scattered about. The fibrils in NOAA 11166 were outstanding and plentiful, reaching out through plage in wide arcs. 11164 looked etched near the limb with stark contrast between the filaments and plage.

It was 11165 that kept most of my attention today with its area of prominence changing so rapidly that I’m fairly certain portions of it erupted and then collapsed on itself. Two times sections had broken free and floated off. During those times, a sketch was completed every 5-10 minutes.

I would have liked to have stayed out for at least a few more hours, but the transparency became too horrendous to pull detail out of the prominences and full overcast skies was soon to follow.

Sunspots On the Edge

Hallo

Here´s some further information

Object Name: sunspot complex 1161-1162
Object Type: sunspot
Location: Tale, Austria
Date: 23.2.2011
Media: pencil on white paper, digital work done with “Gimp 2”
Equipment: Skywatcher Equinox 100/900ED with Baader Herschel Wedge, Baader Maxbright Binoviewer and 18mm Baader Genuine Ortho eyepieces

Seeing was moderate, therefore 130x was the highest possible magnification. Some nice lightbridges near the umbra of the bigger sunspot caught my attention.

Kind regards
Michael

The Sun from Trondheim City

Hey!

I send you an observation of the sun seen in H-alfa. The sun was seen between drifting clouds.
There was most activity near the south-western limb. This sketch is raw and directly made at
the telescope.
I was home to a friend with a 50 mm refractor just outside Trondheim city, Norway.
I used white paper, graphite and colour pencil.
This is my first try to sketch the sun seen in H-alfa.
Hope you like it!

Best wishes from Per-Jonny Bremseth.

Calm Before the Storm

Object Name The Sun
Object Type Star
Location Lost Pleiad Observatory, Tucson, AZ
Date July 31, 2010, completed at 1628 UT (9:28 AM local time)
Media HB graphite pencil on plain white paper

Additional information:
This sketch of the sun was completed the day before Active Region 11092 erupted with a C class flare that blew the dark snaking filament near the meridian right off the sun and toward earth. This eruption was responsible for the aurora that have been on display in northern latitudes over the last couple nights of August 3 and 4.

I made the sketch while observing the sun through my Lunt Solar Systems pressure tuned 60mm Hydrogen Alpha scope, and a Baader Hyperion 8-24mm Zoom eyepiece. The sketch took approximately 30 minutes to complete, at which time the sun had an altitude of 47 degrees above the horizon with an azimuth of 98 degrees. Seeing was average, due to high humidity and passing clouds, however, there were enough moments of steady seeing to allow for fine detail to be observed within the active region (AR). AR 11092 contains a very dark and sizable sunspot that is visible even in the hydrogen alpha wavelength. In addition, there are a couple thin filaments on the following (east) side of the AR.

Alan Strauss

Foe of Icarus

I use:
Crayola Cerulean pencil for plage
Crayola Aqua Green pencil for proms
White 20# paper
I scan into photoshop and invert.

Blue skies,

Stephen Ames
270-358-8634 – t
240-376-8634 – f
http://www.AdjustableRateMarketing.com

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