I left for work this morning at 5:30; a beautiful cool morning with a red Sun just peeking above the horizon. I stopped for gas, and noticed a car at the other pump with Quebec plates. Actually, only one plate on the back as that's all that's required and issued there. Anyways, went to pay for my gas, and the owner of the car was asking the cashier in very broken English for directions. I was born in Montreal and have lived over half my life there. All that to say, I'm bilingual, and when I asked him if he needed help with that perfect Quebecois accent included, his face lit up like the Sun was doing.
I spent 15 minutes helping him out; he was so grateful. He insisted on at least buying me a coffee and we parted ways. I even gave him my cell number in case he got lost. That was almost 12 hours ago now, haven't heard a thing. Guess all's good.
I had some deliveries in the west part of Ontario. Farm country. Driving down all these RR's, fields on either side, no other vehicles for miles, perfect blue skies, tunes cranked... And I get to see happy people and their furballs.
Some days it's nice to be me
Of course, astronomy (both night and day) is always on my mind. I knew of the "soon to be rotated out of our field of view" spots on the Sun, AR's 2824 & 26. AR2825 unfortunately did not live too long. I also knew it was supposed to be hazy then cloudy starting at about 3PM, according to the forecast. I figured all this out last night. One of the reasons I headed out so early.
I pulled in at a bit after 1:30PM to still clear skies. The Sun was almost overhead in a cloudless sky. Knowing that could change in a heartbeat...
Said Hi to the family, went downstairs and got my C80-HD, Baader solar filter and Canon 550D. I took all this outside, lined up on the Sun, and took 35 shots at ISO 100 and 1/250th sec exp.
I have this down to such a science, if you will, that the whole process from going downstairs, getting and setting up the scope and taking the shots was just under seven minutes... Seven minutes of terror?
I ran all 35 through PIPP for alignment, then through AS3 for stacking. I stacked all 35 frames at 25, 50, and 75 percent respectively. All three stacks came out well, but I was partial to the 75% one.
Some minor L/R deconvolution in ImPPG, and a final bit of tweaking in PhotoShop with the Camera Raw filter. This is the end result with the Earth to the bottom right for scale:
Click here for a full size image
And I did try to enhance the penumbra around the spots... Did I mention I really want a Calcium-K filter?
Click here for a full size image
This took me to after three o'clock. I took a look back outside, and sure enough, my forecast was right. Haze and clouds to the west; my timing was good.
Hoping for a clear night one day (night?); I have a few things to try out.
Hoping your forecast is clear and all the best,