Emptied the water bucket in the dehumidifier after discovering an alert LED. The hose inside the unit must be leaking...
Remembered to start the computer before the mount.
Tried a timing trick to eliminate the oscillation during roof opening. Nailed it after a few attempts. Dietmar said it is due to a loose belt.
11:21 AM. Saw a sunspot, near centre. Small one beside it.
Through the refractor, with the mirror diagonal, and 12mm CeMax, I put north up.
Viewed a big prom on the north edge, made up of a couple of elements, floating off in space, a low-lying prom on the right/east edge. There was a filament near the equator, just under half-way from centre to the east edge, very large.
The spot in the centre is actually two. A figure-8 shape. Separate, just touching. It's actually just north of centre. Slightly to the west. Headed toward the 11:30 position.
Another filament also on the east edge, near the limb, about the 4 o'clock position, very large structure.
Oh. I located an additional little sunspot, to the north. Slightly to the right. Amazing detail.
There was another filament. Fairly small. Aiming toward the 4:30 orientation.
Oh. Huge prominence on the southern limb, slightly to the west. Shaped like an animal, perhaps a lion, with two legs reaching down to the limb.
Lots going on today!
11:30. Switched to white light. All the dust and gloop on the eyepiece makes it difficult though. Needed cleaning again. Where was my puffer? Centred the Sun in the 55mm Plössl 2" Tele Vue eyepiece. You need to back up from this eyepiece...
Could see the big sunspot, or rather, the two touching sunspots. Two dark umbra. They are separated but the penumbra surrounded both.
Above, to the north, I could see a small sunspot. On closer examination, I could see at least 3 or 4 very small ones. It's like a archipelago. The big one was a complex element. There were a bunch of little black dots. In general, they were trailing away, in a string or line, to the 10 o'clock position. As the seeing stabilised, I could see more spots. There were a lot!
Spotted another one! West. Just below the equator. A lot smaller. Smaller than the others. Pretty well on the equator. Played with the focus. Possibly it is two spots...
Aligned the Tele Vue 101 to the C14. Got the Sun centred in both 'scopes.
Looked where I saw the spot near the equator in white light, then in Hα; it could be easily missed. Very small.
Toasty...
Retreated to the warm room (or should I say, cool room).
Checked the local weather station readings. Weird. Discovered the wind speed readings at zero. Visually inspected the station. Noticed the anemometer not spinning. Jammed. Humidity 89, pressure 101.28, temp 23.1, heat index 24.4. Wow. Received 9.4 mm of rain yesterday.
11:40. Viewed the Spaceweather web site to identify the objects seen. Initially, it showed a very different Sun but I realised it was cached data. Ah ha. Wow. Look at all those spots! Saw centre large spot complex, 1093; archipelago style complex to the north was 1096; and the small one to the south, 1095. Huh. 1096 is the newest one! And then they showed a new spot on the east limb. Kp index was quiet or 1; the 24 max. got to 3...
Went back to the 'scope. I located the new spot, 1097, in white light, on the limb. I could see a disturbance in the Hα view, although it was challenge. Not easy.
Checked my orientation by turning off the tracking. Everything was drifting into the 10 o'clock position. I tuned the white light mirror to match; I set the Hα parallel.
Now, the archipelago was in a 10 o'clock orientation. Tuned it a bit more.
Didn't have my cap with me. Needed that to reduce glare. Still had my PJs on. Shorts would be smart...
Noticed condensing water on the floor of the warm room.
Noticed the big proms dimmed in the 12mm eyepiece when off centre. Perhaps it is advantageous to use the low power eyepiece.
11:49. Returned to the observatory in shorts with cap, netbook and wireless mouse, eyepiece-camera adapter, PnS camera, eyeglasses strap. Emailed the RASC Toronto Centre listserv to urge people to view the Sun.
Returned to the eyepiece in white light. Chair was hot. The 1096 grouping was fascinating. It reminded me of the Hawaiian islands. Wanted to zoom in using the 27 mm eyepiece, so to double the power. The eyepiece started fogging! I warmed it in the Sun. I also bumped up power in Hydrogen adding the doubler with the 12 mm CeMax. Sheesh. A cloud went over as I tried to tune the Etalon. Put the dry 27 mm in. It too was dirty. White light emphasises the crap in the eyepiece. I centred on the huge grouping. Fascinating. Decided to go higher, with the Nagler 13 mm. Aired it out. Meanwhile I tuned the Etalon. Found it harder to focus with the 2x. Finally added the 13 mm to the C14 and focused. It was a fair view. During moments of good seeing, I moved the sunspot complex into a clear, dust-free space in the eyepiece.
The 1096 was a large grouping of objects. The main spot was complex. It was not round.
I removed the 13 mm. I didn't like how dark and dirty it was. Switched to the 18 mm. Dirty. Found it had fingerprints on it. Dried it in the sunlight.
Did the math with the Hα 'scope. I was finding it too hard to focus with 6 mm effective. Too much. I put the 18 mm in with the 2x, i.e. 9 mm. Showed the whole disk. Viewed the big prom at approx. the 10:30 position. Large structure then a deek left. Tiny prom near the north. Pretty well something everywhere!
I would not get any sleep... if I had one of these at home...
12:08 PM. Just loaded the 18 mm. Still hard to see with all the flaws and debris. Easy to look at the wrong thing. Tried to find a clear spot, again, in the eyepiece. The Radian 1¼" eyepiece was good. Oh wow. It moments of clear seeing, it coaxed out amazing detail. I could see a dozen or so small spots all together. Hmmm. Let's draw this!
12:19. I returned to the warm room with all the sketching gear. New case with pencils, erasers, etc. Clipboard with large log sheets. And music stand (which took me a while to set up).
Before the Sun reached the meridian, I sketched the spot complex 1096 after showing the disk and north. Birds were chirping, cicadas were vibrating in the distance. It was hot! Me, the observatory, the chair.
I discovered I didn't have any hard pencils, like H or 2H. Huh. Thought I had procured some... Those might be useful in the future for doing light work or very fine, thin, outlining.
Pretty happy with the sketch, although the umbra spots are not dark enough.
It was the first time using music stand. Worked great. Very handy. Everything at my fingertips. Could take the forces of the light breeze, me handling it, sketching on it.
12:49. I moved accessories to the north table by the door to get them out of the sunlight.
Photoed the sketch. I'll scan it later...
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Here's the hi-rez scan...
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On a number of occasions I found my voice on the recorder drowned out by wind noise. I should maybe make a point of using the windsock, if I'm outside, possibly subject to wind...
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Huh? Both the Dell and ASUS fell asleep. I found everything unplugged in the GBO warm room. I wondered if it was a bit paranoid...
1 comment:
Nice! Very nice.
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