Solar activity continues to increase. Today, I was capturing images through breaks in what has been almost solid cloud. Below the full disk image is a crop showing AR 3633 to the right and AR 3664 to the left. AR 3633 is unleashing X-Class flares (the most powerful the Sun produces) and AR 3664 may start to flare soon!
I did a little more processing on mu M101 image, removing the stars and tweaking the galaxy itself. The contrast pops a little more and I was able to shrink the star sizes in the Nebulosity 4 software package.
The Sun was in and out of clouds today, so I had to take a few single images rather than a movie. Interestingly, the clouds really enhanced the contrast on the spots. I was hoping to get out the Ha scope today, too, but conditions just aren’t cooperating.
The Whirlpool Galaxy provided another test for the Seestar. This image is a star of 154 x 20s images, for a total integration time of about 51 minutes--much shorter than I would have liked, but I had to terminate the imaging session earlier than usual. The image is consequently a little more noisy that I would like, but it's acceptable as a test image.
The Sun on May 2, 2024. AR 3663 (the larger sunspor area above the center of the disk) , has the potential for X-Class flares.
Conditions here in Charlotte were excellent for imaging last night. I'm still testing the Seestar and picked M 101 as a target. The image below is a processed stack of 299 x 20s images. I'm quite pleased with the result. For comparison, I've also uploaded an image captured by the RASA with a 90-minute integration (its a little larger in size), so the actual imaging times were quite similar. close to $10,000 worth of gear versus $500. Pretty amazing!
The Sun continues quiet today, although AR 3654 (closeup image), has the potential for X-Class flares.
This image is a 20+ hour integration on WR 134, which is a highly energetic Wolf-Rayet star. The blue shockwave is oxygen ionized by the int...
