The Sun on March 21, 2013

We finally had some clear weather and I was able to take some solar images.  The sun is rather quiet, but there are still some things worth looking at (active areas, filaments, etc.).  I've noticed that my imager, a LifeCam, sometimes produces "mosquito noise" on images.  I'm not sure why this happens.  Eliminating it in Photoshop is relatively easy, but the process also degrades the image.  I may try experimenting with exposure times and contrast settings to see if that helps. Images were taken with the PST-SolarMaxII without a barlow.

Active areas, filaments and prominences

There are some interesting features around the active area to the upper left of this image

A close up of the active area in the image above.  Note the "mosquito noise" to the left of the feature

An inverted close-up of the solar surface