If you have a solar filter, check out today's sunspots. There is quite a chain of them present at the moment. They look great through the binos and the ED80.
Could be a good practice session for those preparing for Thursdays transit.
Desist from this cruel teasing Paul…..when the dense morning fog dissipates and the showers forecast for this afternoon clear away, perhaps the Sun will still be up in Brisbane.....
I wish I could Al. I am basically house bound at the moment. I did my back in the week before last and I can't do a thing. All I can do is look at the spots through the binos and the ED80 on a photo tripod (cant now cos the suns too high). I can't bend, carry, sit for extended periods,.... anything. If you guys are frustrated with the clouds, imagine how I feel at the moment I don't know how I'm going to manage Thursday morning, but come hell or high water if it's fine here I'll be imaging.
Same here (re Thursday). I have a cheap Chinese 80mm Refractor standing by with Orion filter and the boss has given me permission to set up in his office looking out his floor to ceiling window so the rest of the staff can have a gander (without leaving the office!) If I'm lucky the ETX I ordered will be here so I won't have to keep adjusting the scopes position.
Cleared up to a cloud free day here, awesome string of sunspots. We were observing with a f/9 Refractor and a full aperture glass filter, best views at 80x. It was very hard to achieve focus with such a small mount and the photo doesn't do justice to the view through the ep. The following was taken with a 4mp camera set at 100iso 1/250 sec exp coupled to a 15mm ep.
I wish I could Al. I am basically house bound at the moment. I did my back in the week before last and I can't do a thing. All I can do is look at the spots through the binos and the ED80 on a photo tripod (cant now cos the suns too high). I can't bend, carry, sit for extended periods,.... anything. If you guys are frustrated with the clouds, imagine how I feel at the moment I don't know how I'm going to manage Thursday morning, but come hell or high water if it's fine here I'll be imaging.
I can appreciate how frustrating that is, Paul! Take it easy, mate. Rest up and look after your back. You've only got one!
Here are a couple of spaps I posted under Solar System in the images forum on the 2/10/06 and the thread I wrote.
Here are a couple of shots I took about 1 hour ago. This is while I am at home from work with some sort of bug, but recovering well Apparently the large spot (921) is the size of Jupiter!! The web site spaceweather.com shows some reasonable spots forming on the far side which if all holds together should join 921 and 922 on our side around the 7th November they say. Heres hoping for the 9th, which I have taken of from work for obvious reasons
Details: Hand held Olympus 410 compact digital, 200mm skywatcher Newt.
25mm plossl for the first pic and 10mm plossl and camera on telephoto for the close up.
Yesterday sunday 4pm, I thought "Lets have a look for these sunspots" Out came my Celestron 90mm wobbletronic with home made Baader film, and YES first light through the filter and there they were - just like your photos, Mick. I got best view with 18mm Ortho with No 12 yellow filter. That big one was awesome but that group (chain) of smaller ones was even more mind blowing. Thinking of all that electricity or static or whatever is belting out of the nuclear fusion machine. MAGIC!!
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Sunspots: Sunday 5/11/06- Check 'em out
Then get your butt up the coast Dennis, it is an absoloutely gorgeous morning here.
