Category: Solar scraps
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Mount Doom....
Last week we were walking through the fields in our hometown. As you can see on the image below, about an hour before sunset we were treated on a very special sight, the Sun “touching” the top of a big cloud. The view instantly reminded us of Mount Doom, the big volcano in Mordor (from The Lord of the Rings). Hmmmm….. maybe finally something happening in Landgraaf, Netherlands
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Math on 06/26 at 11:16 AM |
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Friday, August 18, 2006
A quick look at the Sun
In the afternoon the Sun came out for a few minutes, so I quickly got out the 4-inch refractor and the Herschel-Wedge. There was a wonderful active region visible, AR 0904. The umbra looked jet-black against the "Green" Sun. I use the Baader Herschel-Wedge combined with a 3.0 neutral density filter and the Baader Continuum Filter. Simply beautiful. For visual observing of the Sun in white light, I never had any better views than with this fine piece of equipment. The image does not come close to what I really observed, but it should give you an idea. I stacked it from 235 frames from some video-footage I shot with my Canon camcorder. I used Registax for stacking.
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Math on 08/18 at 05:17 PM |
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Thursday, July 27, 2006
Observing the Sun from the shade
I have been observing the Sun for over a year now, using the Coronado PST and TAL 100RS (combined with the Baader Herschel Wedge). One of the problems I noticed during all the observing sessions was getting a good view of the Sun while you are sitting in the direct sunlight. I used to put a black T-shirt over my head, but I can tell you, you feel like your head starts to melt within a few minutes.
Two months ago I decided to try a big plate of Styrofoam. I just cut two holes in it with a box cutter, so it fits over the PST and the 4-inch refractor. To be honest, it works perfectly for me. Now I sit much more relaxed behind the eyepiece. The views are much better, and the white Styrofoam keeps of the heat as well. If I want to have a real good view through the PST, I still use the black T-shirt, but because I do not get direct sunlight on my head, this isn’t a problem anymore. My advise for solar-observers: get behind some kind of white plate, and of you are looking in H-alpha, make your surroundings as dark as possible. I personally get much more contrast when I view with the black T-shirt draped over my head and over the telescope.
Here are two images of the telescopes and the Styrofoam plate, and two images (from the first week of June) I shot during that observing session, one with the PST and one with the Herschel-wedge. Click on the images to enlarge!
Posted by
Math on 07/27 at 06:13 AM |
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Sunday, July 31, 2005
Large prominence
At the moment there is a big prominence visible as well as the active region AR 792. Here are some images from some two hours ago (click to enlarge!)
Enjoy the images for now. Details on the images will follow within the next few days. I will keep you updated.
Clear skies
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Math on 07/31 at 09:19 AM |
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Saturday, June 25, 2005
Two sunsets
Yesterday it was very hot and humid with 34 degrees Celsius and 90% humidity. Late in the afternoon some really big thunder clouds where forming. Around 19.00 hours UT the Sun was setting behind one of these huge clouds. It was quite a spectacular site as you can see on the image below on the left (click to enlarge). The image was shot with the Nikon Coolpix 775 with automatic settings.
The image on the right shows a sunset on the German island of Ruegen, about two weeks ago. The sun sets just behind Cape Arkona, the north cape of Germany. The image was shot with the Canon MVX25i with a resolution of 640x480 pixels.
Click on images to enlarge
Posted by
Math on 06/25 at 03:57 PM |
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Monday, May 02, 2005
More detailed image of Sunspot 756
Here’s a more detailed image of sunspot 0756. The image was also shot on Sunday 1 May 2005. The telescope used was the TAL 100RS with a 15mm Vixen Lanthanum. The image was shot with the Coolpix 4500 and Baader IR/UV cut filter and Baader Contrast Booster. The cameras settings were 2272x1704, 1/60sec, f/5.1, iso 100 and 4x optical zoom.
The image is stacked out of 13 original images using Keiths Image Stacker. Unsharp Masking and level correction where applied.
Posted by
Math on 05/02 at 02:57 PM |
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Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Testing the Baader Fringe Killer and Continuum Filter
Last week I tested a few Baader filters with the 4-inch TAL refractor mounted on the EQ6. I only used the Baader Solar Filter (ND=5). I started with a 32 mm plossl. This eyepiece gives a magnification of 31x. The sun’s granulation was very easy to detect. The big group of sunspots (652) was near the western limb of the Sun. There where some
big fields of faculae around this group. To the south of 652 was another group of faculae visible. I tried other magnifications, but the best view visual was with the 32mm Televue plossl. There was great detail in the sunspots and faculae.
In the 4-inch TAL refractor, the image of the Sun is small, with some sky left around it. This telescope gives a more “stable” view of the Sun, compared to the 8-inch Klevtzov. The 4-inch is my favourite for observing the Sun. The fringe Killer softened the colour fringe around the Sun, but the colour fringe did not completely disappear.
With the Baader Continuum filter the views are even better. The sunspots, faculae and granulation ore shown some more contrast. The green image is very pleasing to the eyes. I prefer this to the white light image.
Later I shot some images of the sun, but the 32mm is not very useful. I did not get any satisfying results with this eyepiece. With the 25mm Vixen Lanthanum, the results immediately improved. I got the best overall pictures in white light with the following settings: f 4.7, ISO 100, 1/2000s, spot metering. With the Baader Continuum filter in place I used the following setting: f 4.2, ISO 100, 1/60s, spot metering.
On the digital images I noticed a difference with the visual observing I made. On the photographs, the details are better in white light, while observing visually the details are better when using the Continuum filter. The next time I will shoot the white light images using the ND=5 solar filter and the “green light” (Continuum filter) will be used to shoot images using the ND=3.8 solar filter.
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Math on 08/04 at 02:28 AM |
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Saturday, July 17, 2004
First results Baader AstroSolar Photographic Filter
Yesterday I tested the Baader AstroSolar Photographic Filter in combination with the Baader Kontinuum filter. This combination only lets a small part of the spectrum (540nm) get through and should give high contrast in the sunspots and granulation. Here are the first results. The images where taken with the Nikon Coolpix 4500 mounted on
the TAL 100 RS (4-inch refractor), using a 10mm Vixen Lanthanum eyepiece (100x) I did not use any other filters than the Baader Kontinuum. The first three images are stacked out of 15 originals (1600 x 1200, f 5.1, 1/500s, ISO 100) using Keiths Image Stacker. Both images where processed with image processing software (unsharp masking, contrast +15, and resizing). The fourth image was stacked out of 35 images (1600 x 1200, f 5.1, 1/30s, ISO 100).
In the first image I left the original colour (green from the Kontinuum filter), in the second image I converted the first image into greyscale. The third and fourth image are in original colour again. For a first result, they look very promising. On the first image, a hint of granulation can be seen. Also notice the sunspot on the suns limb.
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Posted by
Math on 07/17 at 02:01 AM |
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