After 4 days finally a break in the clouds 31 January 2023

[Averton]

Our non summer continues with a spate of cool and cloudy days. Yesterday by mid afternoon the clouds had finally cleared, but being that late in the day, the seeing conditions are never that good here. We set up and took a few images anyway. We used a single stack for our Ha close ups to minimise exposure time to try and cut through the muck. Only so successful. There are five active regions including a new one in the SE. There are some impressive polar crown proms in the north. The one coming in on the eastern side is returning for a second trip around.

[Averton]

Seeing data for the session.

[kencas]

Great pics as always!
Sticky beak again if you didn't mind - how did you obtain the SSM data?

[Averton]

Thanks Ken.
SSM stands for Solar Scintillation Monitor. The design and circuit was done by E. J. Seykora, Department of Physics, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC in 2012. A company called Airy Labs made them commercially and many people purchased them. At this time Airy Labs have ceased manufacture due to the company being bought out. If you have moderate electronics ability (have assembled a Jaycar kit for instance) it is a easy project to make your own (which is what we have done). It also is very cost effective to make your own. You then just capture the data into a text file, dump it into a spreadsheet and create the graph.

https://www.blackwaterskies.co.uk/2017/06/diy-solar-scintillation-seeing-monitor-sssm/
http://www.joachim-stehle.de/sssm_eng.html
https://www.airylab.com/contenu/SSM/User_Manual_SSM-EN.pdf

[kencas]

Thank you! Another little project on the side to keep me busy!!! :D

[Averton]

Ken, you are welcome. This is a worthwhile project which gives a much better understanding of your local seeing conditions. If you haven't already purchased the Solar Astronomy Book this too is well worth it and has additional information explaining seeing conditions and SSMs. https://solar-astronomy-book.com/
Have fun :)

[kencas]

Yep! I have already purchased that one and I'm leisurely thumbing my way through it!

[Averton]

It is an excellent source of information but the translation means that you have to carefully read some sections to get the full meaning.