Observatory Part 7

Good progress today!  My son-in-law and I hauled out the pre cut timber for the roof frame and assembled it in the barn on the observatory site.

I has already attached the castors prior to assembly (we assembled it upside down and flipped it).  We rolled the frame outside and lifted it onto the wall frame of the observatory.

I was relieved to find it fitted well and rolled easily.  The next step was to install the anchor mechanisms (four of them).  As you can see from the picture below, I went for "cheap and cheerful!"

These latches, one on each corner, can be tightened by screwing the barrel.  On each side, they angle away from each other so that the roof is anchored no matter the wind direction. Nathan and I pushed as hard as we could and the frame was as solid as if we had nailed it in place.  The next step  was to erect the gables on the frame:

And finally, we added the roof braces:

Problem!  We cut the roof frame exactly to size, but the braces were actually longer than the shed by an inch or so!  As the shed is also exact dimensions, we were a little perplexed.  Our plan to fix the issue is quite simple.  I am going to add weatherboards to all sides, so I will just add a 2 x 4 to the back and a 2 x 8 to the  front.  These boards will "hang down" off the roof frame and keep out the weather.  Once they are attached, we'll simple move the gable bases out an inch or so until the whole assembly is square.

Work finished, we covered the building in a tarp.  Next week, we should be able to get the roof on....

AR 1543--Decent Seeing

I took this image of AR 1543 this afternoon.  Seeing was considerably better than yesterday.  A lot more detail is visible on this image than the one I took yesterday.  This is a stack of 164 of 1003 frames.  Below is another image taken about 10 minutes later:

Seeing had improved even more.  Note the improved contrast and fine detail in the spot "center" on this image. The upper image has been cropped, but the lower one if full resolution (1280 x 720).

AR 1543

This is an image of AR 1543 in rather poor seeing.  The group has the potential to produce M-Class flares.  This is a stack of 243 frames out of 1000--a testament to how bad seeing was during today's imaging session.

AR 1543 with Edge Prominence

I was processing this image of Sunspot 1543 when I noticed the rather nice prominence on the edge of the disk.  Spicules are almost resolved; it's very tough to image them with the small aperture of the PST and a single etalon.

AR 1542

Although the sun is fairly quiet at the moment, Sunspot 1542 is producing small, C-class flares. Note the prominences at the edge of the sun's disk.

Farewell to our Filamentary Friend

This is probably one of the last images I will take of this filament as it moves over the sun's limb.  It was fun while it lasted!  This is a stack of 690 frames out of 1000, stacked and processed in my usual tools (Registax, Corel, and Windows).

Jupiter in full daylight

I was cleaning and collimating my old LXD55 10 inch SNT this morning at around 11:30 am.  The sky was very clear and I decided to do some testing on the moon, which was visible toward the west.  I took a  quick look and walked away.  The scope was not powered or properly polar aligned.  I left the scope and came back about 10 minutes later and was very surprised to see Jupiter in the field of view.  With the barlow and a 26mm eyepiece, bands were clearly visible on the planet.   I've never looked for Jupiter in broad daylight and it was a real treat to see it unexpectedly.