The Sun on April 23, 2024

The Sun on 4/23/24. One of the issues with the beautiful place where I am fortunate to live, is that I am surrounded by trees. Add to that a couple of rooflines, and my imaging is limited to a sliver of sky. Moving the RASA is a time consuming affair and setup is not simple. I decided to take a risk and buy a Seestar 50 robot scope. It's relatively inexpensive and will allow me to image objects I cannot from my current location. It is not a replacement for the RASA, or any other scope or imager, but an adjunct.

The Seestar arrived today, and I took it out to image the Sun with the solar filter provided with the scope. I just popped the scope down, told it to find the Sun, and seconds later, there it was. The image below is a single capture. I am extermely impressed with the quality and sharpness. I could zoom right in and look at fine details, all on my phone. The tracking was rock solid and the zoomed sunspots stayed firmly centered for the length of my observing session (about 30 mins).

This little scope has the potential to be a real game-changer. Tonight--DSOs! (Click to zoom, znd pinch out to zoom further--there's lots of detail in the spots!).