This is the first Monday everyone has been at work for the past three weeks, and that was nice. I left at 7AM and was home by 12:30. Mondays are great, as long no one is on vacation
This morning at the time when I left it was -25C (-13F) outside. Brrr!! However, it was really clear. Too cold for moisture to collect. However, that changed as the day went on... I'm forecasted for snow tonight and the rising temps would seem to agree.
By the time I got in there were intermittent clouds racing across the sky, the wind had picked up, and there was a bit of a whitish haze to the sky. Of course.
There are a few spots on the Sun today, with one of the biggest for Solar Cycle 25, AR2924. I thought to wait a bit and let the Sun clear my trees, as well as hope for better skies. I put my C80-HD with its Baader solar film outside to let it cool.
I went back out at about 3:15 and mounted the scope on my CG4 with my Canon EOS 550D attached. Wow, it's really cold out here and the wind is whipping... I took 15 shots each at ISO 100 at 1/200th and then at 1/250th sec exposure. From my first shot to my last, it was a total of 1 minute and 33 seconds, according to the picture timestamps... yeah, one minute too long to be out in this!
I wasn't overly impressed with the results; I knew I wouldn't be with the haze in the sky. But it actually turned out better than I thought. I normally (on a good day) shoot the Sun with this camera/scope combo at ISO 100 and 1/250th sec exp. Today it was too hazy; the 1/200th's worked better. Still, the edge of the disc is horrid and everything is rather dark...
But, this is the first time I've seen ol' Sol since November 7th of last year...!!And I've noticed that Spaceweather.com and SOHO would seem to have two spots labelled as AR2924. Am I missing something here?
So here's my stack of 50% of 15 shots processed with PIPP, AS3, ImPPG and some mild sharpening with Paint Shop Pro 9, with the planets to scale.
Full size image here
There are two spots yet to be identified, as you can see by my lousily-drawn "down" arrow. Also, maybe another spot will form on the left of my lousily-drawn "left" arrow.
Annotations are fun:
Definitely not my best image, but I was actually happy to get even this. The rest of the week is not looking good, but at least between this and my lunar observations over the previous weekend, I've gotten a bit in. Better than nothing!
Time to go help with dinner
All the best,
