Today I remembered that I owned a Personal Solar Telescope (PST), so I had a look at the sun. Saw two ultra tiny sunspots, and then could just make out a third teeny one, and a little solar flare.
I bought the PST eight or nine years ago and the sun has been a disappointment ever since (apart from the occasional flare).
I fondly remember the days back in 1982 and 1983 when, with my newly acquired K-Mart Focal 114mm reflector and its sun projection attachment, one could see most of the face of the sun heavily pock marked with dozens of sunspots.
Is anybody else here old enough to remember those wondrous solar days of 30+ years ago?
Today I remembered that I owned a Personal Solar Telescope (PST), so I had a look at the sun. Saw two ultra tiny sunspots, and then could just make out a third teeny one, and a little solar flare.
I bought the PST eight or nine years ago and the sun has been a disappointment ever since (apart from the occasional flare).
I fondly remember the days back in 1982 and 1983 when, with my newly acquired K-Mart Focal 114mm reflector and its sun projection attachment, one could see most of the face of the sun heavily pock marked with dozens of sunspots.
Is anybody else here old enough to remember those wondrous solar days of 30+ years ago?
Cheers,
Renato
um little confused - maybe you needed to change your eyepiece
last Monday in the space of 15 min a flare let rip and had cleared out into space. it is a dynamic ever changing body - its like watching an open fire, it is beautiful, yet deadly - LOL almost described my wife there too
as for 30 years ago - no but i do remember the pics in Astronomy and S&T
Today I remembered that I owned a Personal Solar Telescope (PST), so I had a look at the sun. Saw two ultra tiny sunspots, and then could just make out a third teeny one, and a little solar flare.
I bought the PST eight or nine years ago and the sun has been a disappointment ever since (apart from the occasional flare).
I fondly remember the days back in 1982 and 1983 when, with my newly acquired K-Mart Focal 114mm reflector and its sun projection attachment, one could see most of the face of the sun heavily pock marked with dozens of sunspots.
Is anybody else here old enough to remember those wondrous solar days of 30+ years ago?
Cheers,
Renato
Hi Renato,
I am definitely old enough, but my Focal 114mm reflector DID NOT HAVE the solar projection attachment !!! After all this time, I am seriously hacked off that such a thing existed and I did not know !
It did come with a solar filter, a piece of dark glass that screwed into an eyepiece. Even at fifteen years of age I was pretty dubious about the ability of this piece of glass to dissipate the 100 W or so of insolated energy on a 5" mirror. So I tested it … I put it in the scope, aimed at the sun using the shadow, and stayed right away from the eyepiece. After fifteen seconds I heard the "crack !" of the dark glass shattering. I pushed the scope off the sun, removed the eyepiece and filter, and sure enough it was hot as the hinges of hell, and cracked down the middle.
um little confused - maybe you needed to change your eyepiece
last Monday in the space of 15 min a flare let rip and had cleared out into space. it is a dynamic ever changing body - its like watching an open fire, it is beautiful, yet deadly - LOL almost described my wife there too
as for 30 years ago - no but i do remember the pics in Astronomy and S&T
Thanks. Your pictures describe perfectly what I mean - negligible sunspots.
My PST shows the facula, though not as well as in your photos. But I yearn for proper sunspots.
Hi Tony,
I've been trying to reply to you for the last hour and a half, but for some weird reason, when I hit Reply with Quote, the quote doesn't show up.
I can see that you would be annoyed with Focal. That filter you got was a disgrace. What I got was a nice 6 or 7" square of aluminium painted white on one side and black on the other. It was connected by a rod to a clamp which exactly matched the outside of the focuser. So that the sun's image projected onto the white square.
It took me a while before I noticed that the 6mm and 20mm Hyguens eyepieces got darn hot as I was projecting the amazing images. But the heat didn't wreck them, and they still work fine (though I bought better ones for it).
I can see that you would be annoyed with Focal. That filter you got was a disgrace. What I got was a nice 6 or 7" square of aluminium painted white on one side and black on the other. It was connected by a rod to a clamp which exactly matched the outside of the focuser. So that the sun's image projected onto the white square.
My first Kmart 900mm refractor also came with this clamp, bracket & metal plate. Now 30 years on I have a 12" Dob & recently I've ordered a 12" sq polymer sun filter to make a 14" near full aperture filter. Anything I should be aware of apart from removing the spotting scope!
Hi Renato, I can certainly remember the Kmart 114mm reflector. It was in fact the first telescope I ever had that sparked off my love affair with telescopes and astronomy back in 1983. Many happy memories and an awesome solar attachment to the focuser, allowing solar projection onto the white power coated metal plate. I grew up viewing sun spots thg safest way!
Alas I gave her away to a teacher friend of mine back in 1997. I sometime miss it!
Hi Renato, I can certainly remember the Kmart 114mm reflector. It was in fact the first telescope I ever had that sparked off my love affair with telescopes and astronomy back in 1983. Many happy memories and an awesome solar attachment to the focuser, allowing solar projection onto the white power coated metal plate. I grew up viewing sun spots thg safest way!
Alas I gave her away to a teacher friend of mine back in 1997. I sometime miss it!
Well, we're showing our age, but yes, when properly aligned and a with a 6X30 finder added to it, mine was and still is a pretty good telescope. I even upgraded the eyepieces and bought a SkyGlow filter for it.
I keep it at my parent's home where my brother now lives with his family.
I pull it out when I visit, and show them and visitors the moon and planets and big DSOs.
Cheers,
Renato
There's a big group of sunspots moving into view now. The next couple of days should see them better.
I do remember some big groups in the 80's. I used to view them with my Tasco 10K 80mm F15 refractor and projection screen.
Thanks. Nice to see someone else who remembers them.
Curiously or coincidentally or not so coincidentally, that was the time that coincided with the increase in the earth's temperature.
And curiously or coincidentally or not so coincidentally, ever since the big sunspot groups have dried up in the late 1990s, the earth's temperature has entered a pause, a hiatus - has failed to increase.
Regards,
Renato
And curiously or coincidentally or not so coincidentally, ever since the big sunspot groups have dried up in the late 1990s, the earth's temperature has entered a pause, a hiatus - has failed to increase.
Regards,
Renato
What utter rubbish.
While you won't hear this on 2GB, a quick look at almost all peer reviewed climate journals shows that Earth has warmed since 1880.
Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years.
Even though the 2000s with a solar output decline resulting in an unusually deep solar minimum in 2007-2009, surface temperatures continue to increase.
While surface warming has slowed..it's still going up....and more disturbingly the deep ocean is warming at an alarming rate.
While you won't hear this on 2GB, a quick look at almost all peer reviewed climate journals shows that Earth has warmed since 1880.
Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years.
Even though the 2000s with a solar output decline resulting in an unusually deep solar minimum in 2007-2009, surface temperatures continue to increase.
While surface warming has slowed..it's still going up....and more disturbingly the deep ocean is warming at an alarming rate.
When temperature rises and then stops rising - well it stays at the same level - which means that it hasn't risen or fallen.
So, when you say 10 of the warmest years occurred in the last 12 years, that is an irrelevance as it in no way disproves my statement that the earth's temperature has entered a hiatus.
Far from being rubbish spouted by 2GB, the existance of the "hiatus" is acknowledged in the 5th Assessment Report of the UN's Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change. Perhaps you can approach them and tell them that their statement is rubbish?
Regards,
Renato
When temperature rises and then stops rising - well it stays at the same level - which means that it hasn't risen or fallen.
So, when you say 10 of the warmest years occurred in the last 12 years, that is an irrelevance as it in no way disproves my statement that the earth's temperature has entered a hiatus.
Far from being rubbish spouted by 2GB, the existance of the "hiatus" is acknowledged in the 5th Assessment Report of the UN's Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change. Perhaps you can approach them and tell them that their statement is rubbish?
Regards,
Renato
Where did you get that from???
Section 2, Observations: Atmosphere and Surface
page 162,
states the temperature increase for: "the 2003– 2012 period is 0.78 [0.72 to 0.85] °C "
They also stress:
"Owing to natural variability, trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends"
You can spin that into a zero, but you'd be misrepresenting the facts.
Last edited by Peter Ward; 12-05-2014 at 11:02 PM.
