Images by Jim Burchell – 23rd to 25th Feb 2023

Member Jim Burchell was busy out and about towards the end of February photographing our stunning sky and below is a selection of his superb images.

 

Orion, Taurus and the Pleiades taken on the 23rd Feb from the CMHASD pavilion, Sutton-at-Hone.

Image was taken with a Pentax KP on a static tripod, F6.3,  30 sec, 18 MM and iso 800.

 

Crescent Moon on the 24th Feb.

 

The Sun taken on the 24th Feb.

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please see our Solar Observing safety page at crayfordmanorastro.com/solar-safety/

Image of the Sun showing sunspots 3229, 3230, 3234, 3235, 3236 & 3237.
This white light image was taken with a Pentax KP attached to 102mm Altair Astro refractor. 1/320 sec & iso200. The image wasn't very sharp as there was some light cloud and the image was then coloured in Snapseed.

 

Crescent Moon with Jupiter & Venus on the 25th Feb.

Active Sun – 10th February 2023 by Jim Burchell

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please see our Solar Observing safety page at crayfordmanorastro.com/solar-safety/

A super image of an active Sun captured by member Jim Burchell on the 10th February 2023 showing Sunspots 3213 to 3221.  Jim took the image with a Pentax KP attached to 102mm Altair Astro refractor using a solar filter.

Below is an image of the Sun on the 10th Feb 2023 taken from Spaceweather com showing the sunspots with their allocated numbers. Credit: SDO/HMI

Enormous Sunspot AR3190 – 20th Jan 2023

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please see our Solar Observing safety page at crayfordmanorastro.com/solar-safety/

A fantastic image of the Sun taken on the morning of the 20th January 2023 by member Jim Burchell.  The image was taken by Jim using a pentax KP attached to 102mm Atair Astro refractor fitted with a solar filter.  At the 4 O clock position from the centre of the Sun is the large sunspot AR3190.  AR3190 is one of the largest sunspots of Solar Cycle 25 so far, at almost five times the diameter of Earth.

Boxing Day Sun in Hydrogen Alpha by Honor Wheeler

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please see our Solar Observing safety page at crayfordmanorastro.com/solar-safety/

A stunning image of the Sun in H-alpha on 26th Dec 2022 by Honor Wheeler. 

The image was acquired by Honor at 20221226_1212UT  using a Canon M6 Mark II and Personal Solar Telescope (PST).

Honor wrote 'This image of the Sun was taken using a Coronado personal solar telescope or PST which shows the Sun's H-alpha surface features. These features include Sunspots, Filaments and Prominences.  In this image there are a number of large Prominences around the edge of the Sun's disc and on the surface these can be seen as the dark Filaments snaking across the face of the Sun. The bright areas are Sunspots which are active regions which can flare brightly as you can see at the top right of the disc.  Most H-alpha images that show Sunspot and Prominence detail and activity are composite images and are photographed separately then combined in editing software. In this case however, I was lucky and I managed to capture both Prominence, surface structures and activity in one single photo.'

New Society Solar Projector built by member George Buckberry – Society Meeting – 2023.01.26

Member George Buckberry with his hand built Solar Projector

Last week following our Society meeting on the 26th January 2023, we learned about the design and construction of a table-top solar projector built by George Buckberry. After all of the effort involved in building the projector, George has very kindly donated it to the Society for use by members and also as a means of educating the public at one of our outreach events. Thank you George for your very kind donation.

Below is a link to George's PowerPoint presentation of how George built the Solar Projector in the form of a PDF file which you can download. 

SolarScope Design & Build by George Buckberry of CMHASD

Very Active Sun – 2023 Jan 15 – Honor Wheeler.

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please see our Solar Observing safety page at crayfordmanorastro.com/solar-safety/

On the morning of Sunday 15th January 2023, CMHASD member Honor Wheeler captured this absolutely stunning image of the Sun.  As you can see it was very active and still is!  Details of how Honor acquired her brilliant image are on the photo. 

 

The information below is taken from the website Spaceweather.com

Picture above shows the Sun on 15th January 2023 - taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory with the Sun spots labelled.

'''...I can't remember having seen so many sunspots together; indeed, the sunspot number is high. If solar activity continues at this pace for the rest of January, the monthly sunspot number will reach a 20-year high. And Solar Maximum is still ~2 years away. Contrary to predictions, Cycle 25 is shaping up to be a good one, after all.''

 

17th Jan 2023

''NAKED-EYE SUNSPOT: One of the biggest sunspots in years (AR3190) is crossing the solar disk--and you can see it with the naked eye. "Be sure to use safe solar glasses to protect your eyes," says Bum-Suk Yeom of Iksan, South Korea. "I tried it myself today, and I could see the sunspot clearly." 

As shown in Yeom's infographic, the sunspot is four times wider than Earth. It's twice as big as any other spot on the sun, visible to the naked eye, and a magnificent target for backyard solar telescopes.

Best of all, it's about to explode. AR3190 has an unstable 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares. Any eruptuions will be geoeffective because the sunspot is almost directly facing Earth.'' ''

Unusual Sunspot AR3088 – 26th August 2022 by Simon Dawes

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

On the morning of the 26th August 2022 member Simon Dawes imaged 3 of the sunspots on the sun - AR3086. AR3088 and AR3089 and superb images they are too.  Sunspot AR3088 however looked a little bit different from the usual sunspots seen and indeed it was according to Spaceweather.com - see below.

Details of how Simon acquired the images are on each photo.

Unusual sunspot AR3088

Screen shot from Spaceweather.com explaining why sunspot AR3088 looks unusual....

https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=25&month=08&year=2022

 

Sunspot AR3089

 

Sunspot AR3086

The Sun – 22nd August 2022

Our sun on the 22nd Aug 2022 imaged by member Simon Dawes. Despite seeing being very poor that morning; a great image was achieved by Simon showing an active sun. Details of how Simon acquired the images are on the main photo.

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

Sunspot AR3085

Sunspot AR3081

 

 

Sunspots at Sundown – 13th July 2022

Whist waiting for the Moon to rise on the 13th July 2022 members Honor Wheeler and Jim Burchell photographed the Sun as it set with just their cameras.  When they looked at their images they saw that they had captured some of the massive sunspots on the Sun that day too in their photos.  In both images you can see sunspot AR3055 bottom middle right and sunspot AR3057 top left on the Sun.  In Honor's image you can also see Sunspot AR3053 middle right too.

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

Honor Wheeler's image

Jim Burchell's image

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