Monday, June 29, 2015

The only good viewing days that I have had lately have all been days when the temperature was 100° F or more.  Yesterday was 107° F and today is 102° F.  In other words, I ain't setting out there in that heat. LOL
In the interim I will post a few pictures that my son Jeff took at sunset on two different days looking out over the Gulf of Mexico from the beach near his home.
    At least the are pictures of the sun.  ;-)
Bill



The next one includes a Pelican fly by -



 This is a series that looks as though the sun is melting on the horizon -




Thank you for the great pictures Jeff.  My partner Mike will be back from Europe in a couple of weeks and hopefully between the two of us, we will be able to post more frequently.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

I did manage to record a few videos of the sun today.  They are still down loading to my processing computer but I will try to post a couple today and more tomorrow.
Bill

Well, I had a couple of images to upload but BlogSpot isn't accepting them.  When I resolve the problem I will upload them.

Finally.  :-)

AR2367 -






Long Filaments -






Busy image here.  It covers AR2360, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66 -
 There has been flare activity at AR2360 and I think that the white peaks visible when the image is enlarge are cause by the flare activity.  AR2360 is right at the limb a little bit above the center of the image.


Closer in on AR2360 -









AR2365 -





Saturday, June 6, 2015

I caught another break today.  The sky was a little hazy but surprisingly steady. 
Bill

AR2356 & AR2359 -
(DMK-41 with Barlow)



AR2358 & AR2360 -






AR2360 (To the right), AR2361 & AR2362 (To the left) -







Wider image of the area above -
(DMK-41 no Barlow)


AR2356 & AR2359 -



Image of some granulation -
(DMK-41 & 2.5 Powermate)



The valley here is now filling up with smoke.  The wild fire season has started early due to the very dry conditions in the Western US.  This may put a stop to my chances to image the sun.  We will see.

Update - The smoke has cleared out here so hopefully in the next couple of days, I will be able to get some new images of these sunspot and we can see how they are progressing.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

    There should be an increase in solar activity.  Now if the clouds here would just go away.  :-)
    Bill

  From Space Weather.com


MORE SUNSPOTS, LESS QUIET: The sun has been quiet for much of the past month. This could change as two new sunspots emerge over the sun's eastern limb. 
These new sunspots aren't very large, but at least one of them is active. The dark cores inside the uppermost circle are growing, and on June 4th they unleashed a C8-class solar flare. 
Yes, that's right. The sun is so quiet that a C-class flare is newsworthy.
In fact, the C8-class flare of June 4th was almost 10 times stronger than any flare in the past month. This represents a genuine uptick in solar activity. If the development of the sunspot proceeds apace, genuinely strong flares could be in the offing. Stay tuned for less quiet.