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Don't miss the 4-planet show on the 25th
by John M. Craig 24 Apr '22

24 Apr '22

Hi Folks, Just a plug for rising early tomorrow to see the nice diagonal line of planets in the predawn sky. Tomorrow may not be the ideal day as far as the conjunctions are concerned, but the weather forecasts for the next while aren't promising. I'm headed to Lincoln Beach (west of Spanish Fork) tomorrow early for some telescopic viewing along with some friends. Join us if you like. John

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Anyone else see the great prominence yesterday (or perhaps the day before)?
by John M. Craig 09 Feb '22

09 Feb '22

Hi Folks, I don't know that I've ever seen a prominence that was this high before. It apparently made Facebook as "Jupiter-sized" which is a bit of an ambiguous description but it was impressive--about as high as Jupiter's diameter was what was meant, I think. This link is to a photo from the Cerro Tololo H-alpha scope that is part of the GONG network at around 11:30 Mountain Time yesterday: https://gong2.nso.edu/HA/hag/202202/20220207/20220207183630Ch.jpg A couple of my very much less striking efforts are attached. In case you have any interest in the equipment, these are taken with a Nikon CoolPix 10MP camera that is at least 15 years old; hand held to the eyepiece (Lunt Solar 7.5 - 28 mm zoom) through an 80mm Lunt H-alpha scope, pressure tuned. I think the clarity might well be better if my hands didn't shake so much, but it also has the disadvantage of being a color camera so the resolution is substantially less than 10MP because of the Bayer mask's much smaller number of red-sensitive cells. I continue to enjoy keeping track of our own star and its rapid changes. John

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More solar flares in H-a light
by John M. Craig 22 Dec '21

22 Dec '21

Hi Friends, The sun is really active now--a whole series of active regions on the near side. (It's totally cloudy here in Utah County though.) If you go to this site (Cerro Tololo H-a images as a movie) https://gong2.nso.edu/products/scaleView/view.php?configFile=configs/hAlpha… And set the Start day to 2021-12-21 End day to 2021-12-22; try an Image increment of 5 (that's minutes between frames) & Load Then watch the line of sunspots and plages along the southern side of the sun, there's a number of flares. Very cool. You can see the views from Learmonth also but there's some images that are clouded out somewhat. The El Teide scope doesn't have as good resolution. Big Bear doesn't have as many images as either Cerro Tololo or Learmonth, so maybe try 1 as the Image Increment. It does show a good flare between about 17:53 and 18:43 If you have H-a gear and do any kind of outreach or educational presentations, being able to show what a flare looks like in H-a helps illustrate the difference between a prominence and a flare. (When I show prominences to people they generally refer to them as "flares" and being able to show the difference is fun, I think.) Happy Solstice! John

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Interesting H-alpha sun view today
by John M. Craig 20 Dec '21

20 Dec '21

Some wispy prominences, but lots of spots, plages, and filaments. Haven't checked out white-light, but I imagine it'd be pretty neat too. Should still be good tomorrow, weather permitting. Happy Solstice! John

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Imaging Session: 11/13/2021 "The Early-Morning Comets"
by Dave Gary 13 Nov '21

13 Nov '21

Same stuff, different day. > https://www.flickr.com/photos/78046474@N06/albums/72157720190124930 <https://www.flickr.com/photos/78046474@N06/albums/72157720190124930> Dave

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Some astrophotography experiments with the new Pixel 6 Pro phone
by Rich Allen 11 Nov '21

11 Nov '21

Hi all, Last week I decided to try out the "astro" mode on my new Pixel 6 Pro phone. Pretty impressed by what this thing can do with a single button click. The astro mode requires a very steady shot for a bit over 4 minutes, so I attached the phone to a tripod. I took several shots of Orion, at 1x and 2x, and managed to also capture the Pleiades and Andromeda galaxy. The astro mode also has an option to save the frames used to produce the final image as a video. I stitched together the videos and the final shots of each target into a single video: https://youtu.be/XzVzhrS9-fY I love the skies down here in Kanab. :) Rich Allen -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com

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Lakeridge Jr High trying for star party Friday 5th
by John Craig 01 Nov '21

01 Nov '21

Hi Folks, Forecast is for some clouds we hope with lots of clear holes! Reply directly if you are interested. I'll send out a no-go text late Friday afternoon if it's not going to happen. Thanks for any help! We're trying to get this in now rather than in the spring to be able to show the kids Jupiter and Saturn. ⁣Get TypeApp for Android

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More great views of solar flares on the NSO site
by John M. Craig 28 Oct '21

28 Oct '21

halpha.nso.edu (redirects to a longer name I haven't bothered to memorize) Best view today I've seen is if from the El Teide scope starting at 15:24. the Start day to the 28th and the Image increment to 1 & hit Load. Then play it. The big active area in the central southern hemisphere of the sun is at it again. One coming around from the back side in the NW has also flared, but I haven't found it in the H-alpha images. Happy watching. If you have the gear, definitely worth a look at the sun today! John

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Dramatic flare visible in H-alpha images online
by John M. Craig 27 Oct '21

27 Oct '21

Hi Friends, There are a series of images available here (https://gong2.nso.edu/products/tableView/table.php?configFile=configs/hAlph…) that show a really large flare occurring over a period of about an hour and a half on the 27th from UT ~21:48 to ~23:38. If you show the series of pictures (use the blue arrow button) from the Mauna Loatelescope and step through during the period noted, you can see a really substantial flare develop and subside in conjunction with the large active region (12887) in the central southern part of the image (some of it is visible in the images from Cerro Telolo and Learmouth). One of the things that was particularly interesting to me is that in the Mauna Loa images around 21:58, you can see a flare from a spot farther north and west (12888) of the big active region 12887 that seems to happen right as the much larger flare is getting started. A connection somehow between the two different regions? There's also just a lot going on during other recent times with 12887 BTW, there are interesting maps with info about the visible and often farside active regions here (https://www.raben.com/maps/) I've noticed that on CloudyNights the folks in the solar imaging forum tend to drop the leading 1 from the region numbers. So, I guess if you want to be really in the know, you just use the latter 4 digits (2887 rather than 12887). Check out the gong2.nso.edu site; very cool. John

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3 Early-Morning Comets
by Dave Gary 18 Oct '21

18 Oct '21

During my imaging session this morning I took photos of C/2021 A1 Leonard, 4P/Faye and 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is starting to get a nice tail. It’s back to work, so no more images for a week or two….weather permitting. I heard that sigh of relief. https://www.flickr.com/gp/78046474@N06/b2v635 Later, Dave

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