Prominences and a filament in H-Alpha 02/26/2012

Solar activity continues fairly low at present, but the overall trend is increasing as we approach Solarmax.  Originally supposed to happen in 2011, it now appears that it will not happen until 2013.  The 2013 Solarmax is supposed to be one of the weakest in modern times.

Full disk H-alpha image for 02/26/2012

Prominences are visible on the left limb of the sun. A couple of darker filaments are visible on the disk.  Filaments are prominences seen edge on.  The image below is processed to show more disk detail:

The lighter spot to the lower right is an area outside of the "sweet spot" of the filter.

Conjunction 02/26/2012

Tonight's conjunction of the moon, Jupiter and Venus was spectacular.  In this pic, Jupiter is close to the moon, with Venus towards the bottom of the frame.  Note the earthshine on the moon, making the unilluminated part of the lunar disk visible. In country lore, this used to be called, "the old moon in the new moon's arms."

Another full disk image from 2-12-2012

The image is a little overexposed in the bottom right quadrant, but a fair bit of detail is visible in this full disk H-Alpha capture from the Coronado PST.

Whole Disk H-Alpha Image

This is a whole disk H-Alpha image taken today with the PST and a digital SLR.  The PST has a "sweet spot" in the filter and detail outside the sweet spot does not show very well, so not all features have been captured.  Note the prominences at the bottom of the image and spot group 1416 toward the middle of the disk.

M42 Again

Here is another pic of M42 taken on January 30, 2012 with the 14 inch scope.  The weather was very windy, so I was only able to use four images in the stack.  Exposure time was 15 seconds per image at 1600 ISO.

Orion

With the 14 now on the wedge, I decided to do some experimentation with imaging.  My polar alignment was not precise and the scope has not been trained for polar mode operation.  However, I thought I would try a few exposures to see if the wedge had mitigated the field rotation I was getting in ALT/AZ mode.  As cloud was rolling in, I didn't have much time to get pix, so the focus is very rough and processing is very basic (no darks or flats).  The Great Nebula in Orion (M42) was entangled in tree branches, but I took the following image, which is a stack of six 40-second exposures.  The Trapezium can be clearly seen in the center, and some color in the nebula itself.  Although the focus is a little off, the main thing about this image is that there is no evidence of field rotation.  I look forward to taking some longer exposure images when the weather permits.