Basic Radio telescope -

I starting to gain some experience with my little dish.  Here is the recent results -

January 30, 2014
I was trying to match up my recordings from today with solar flare data and not having any luck. I just noticed on Space Weather.Com a report of an X-Ray solar flare at 2200 UT. The middle chart shows the biggest spikes that I recorded today. Shortly before this the recording was pretty much a flat line and after the spikes subsided. Most solar flares monitor receivers are on a much lower frequency then what I'm using so a big maybe here.

 Earlier recording (Time is UT) -




 Recording at time of X-Ray flare -



 Right after -




February 02, 2014

Today AR1967 produced a flare staring at 21:24:00 UT peaked at 22:04:00 UT and ended at 22:14:00 UT. I had some recording runs at that time and I may have caught some of the action. There was a lot of activity at this time. See the strong signal at 21:36:04 UT. 




 This one I'm thinking is a continuation of the action out to 22:02:40 UT.
















At 22:27:00 UT A1968 produced a C8.4 flare and I think that the right side of this trace is some of that action.














February 03, 2014

I got a late start with my recordings and of course most of the solar activity today was before I started. There was a C7 flare reported at this time wasn't attributed to a sunspot. This was the strongest signal that I had today. Actually I'm glad because it gives me more faith in my earlier recordings, that I'm not just picking up some noise signals. If you compare the signal amplitude to yesterday's signals you will see that this C7 flare has a smaller amplitude as it should. A C flare being 'Minor, an M flare being 'Moderate and an X flare classified as 'Large'.

Images From February 3 2014

It has been more than 2 weeks since Bill or I have seen the sun , I caught a break yesterday and it sure was good to be imaging again . Viewing conditions were good , clear sky's , no wind and temperatures that I could tolerate . We both have a few things that are awaiting some testing but the clouds have been against us , hopefully that will change soon .

Full disks , SM 60 II DS / 0.5 reducer / DMK 21

MiniMax @ 1000mm FL

MiniMax @ 1600mm FL

AR 1967 @ 2500mm FL

AR 1968 @ 2500mm FL

A couple prom shots @ 1600mm FL

Images from January 14, 2014.
I have been doing some tweaking on my scope.  A work in progress.  I'm not totally happy yet.

AR1952 -

AR1949 & AR1953 -

AR1948 & AR1951 -

Nice filament -

AR1948 & AR1950 -

Images from January 9 2014

Those who follow this will know that Bill and I have had lots of time to tweak our scopes due to the weather .I think I am where I want to be with my mod now . The day I shot these the conditions were very good and  the changes I made to my mod seemed to have pay'd off . I will start with the full disk shot .

SM60 II DS / DMK 31 with 0.5 focal reducer

MiniMax at 1000mm  

AR 1944 at same focal length

AR 1844 at 1600mm F/L

Some filaments at 1600mm F/L

And a couple of proms at 1600mm to finish this off .

I was able to get a bit of imaging in on January 09, 2014.  Mike should have some nice images to post here also.  We still had AR1944 which is the biggest sunspot seen in a while.

I did get a chance at one prom before the clouds closed in.

Our viewing and imaging has been severely slowed down due to the winter weather.  I did get the opportunity to take a couple of images on January 04, 2014.   AR1944 has been putting on quite a show most of which we are missing but I did get an early images of the huge sunspot.  You can see the large and small very bright areas.  This sunspot has been producing many solar flares. 

There was some interesting action on the western limb at this time.

There was a nice prominence also.

Rotated and without surface detail.

A four panel image of AR1944.

January 3 Full Disk Images

I managed to get out on the 3rd and it was bitter cold . I knew I would not last long so I only set up my 60 . This one was done with the 0.5 reducer

I do like being able to capture all of the disk but I also like the larger image I can get when not using the reducer . I could fit the full disk on a DMK 41 sensor without any reducer ..... I am trying to resist buying one but Bill is not making it easy for me !

This one is DMK 31 without reducer .

AR 1944 is a beauty , I am hoping Bill will be able to add some nice high rez close ups .