helped at star party (Collingwood)

Helped Ian W with a private school star party gig. While he delivered his astronomy presentation I set up the solar observing equipment. Roadie.

Atop an equatorial mount, I added an ED100 Sky-watcher 900 mm OTA with Nagler Type 5 eyepiece and Kendrick solar full-spectrum filter. Piggybacked a Coronado PST with Pentax 10.5mm.

In white light, sun spot group 2610 was visible (I had looked it up yesterday). I noticed another group. The big spot was at the 5 o'clock position; the small group was at 11. I tried to flip things in my brain given the mirror diagonal.

In the office, I checked the Spaceweather web site. The new group was not yet numbered.

The view in the PST was surprisingly dim. Partly due to the wispy clouds. Still, I could see filaments and proms! Nice.

Later, I spotted a ring! All right: parhelia! It was coloured too. Sweet.

A faint sun dog on the left briefly appeared.

Beautiful weather. Almost shirt-sleeve. 17°!

The students (and teachers) enjoyed the show.