Sun With Poor Seeing

This morning, about 11 o'clock, I imaged the sun again. Some days there's a lot to see; others, not so much. Today, there was a little more. There were two sunspot groups, and a few “small” prominences. The first image is the composite image of the surface and prominence layers, each a separate layer, of course. The second is the left side sunspot group. It appears the camera doesn't change the resolution; instead, it simply reads the Region of Interest from the camera. The only bonus is a faster frame rate. I think this “feature” is not well documented (no change in resolution). In any event, the focus is “softer” than I would like to see it, but I think that will have to wait for better seeing conditions.

Almost the full sun face.Prominences and sunspots visible.

Sunspots on Left side of sun.

Nearing The End

Of imaging the Messier list, that is. In my current state of poor health, I'm not able to get out as much as I would like, so I took advantage of a relatively good night on June 6 to image most of the remaining objects I need for completion of the list. (Only 2 left.) Most were galaxies in the Virgo-Leo area of the sky, and, therefore, fairly close together. None were what I would call spectacular; most were small and dim. I did try a different technique, for me, in the imaging of these objects; I took my flat frames before imaging the sky, left the camera in place (ie, didn't move it at all), then did my night sky imaging. This is a normal technique for most people, but I have not used it, relying on building a flat “library”. After seeing the difference in quality, I think I will convert to using this technique.

Coincidentally, the Messier images also included 3 Herschel objects that were in the frames:NGC4303 in the M61 image, NGC4594 in the M104 image because NGC4594 IS M104, and NGC4478 in the M87image.

I also have worked on imaging the sun, trying to determine the best method of doing that as well. I have found a method that appears to work for now. For several weeks, we have been having cloudy skies, or at the least lots of water vapor and cirrus clouds. There is also a “quite” sun, meaning not much detail to image. I have also decided that my solar scope is performing about as well as possible, but won't show as much detail as I would like because it would need an additional $950 filter to restrict it's bandpass. If I had a good, scientific reason for getting the detail, I think I would go for the filter. But just to make images of the sun..... well, $950 is a lot. I think I'll pass for now. I also found an interesting method of making the composite image of the sun, using my standard technique of imaging the surface, then the prominence area of the sun and combining them. The surface image gets processed as well as I can get it, then the prominence image gets processed. Finally, I composite them into a single image using a layer mask to hide all but the prominence “ring” (just a small ring of the outer layer of the sun that the prominence is attached to), which allows the surface image to come through. Then the entire image can be colored. All that said, that means that the color of the sun image is of MY making, NOT the actual color of the sun. The entire imaging of the sun is actually done in black and white.

PS. Google has just notified me that they are supposed to put a notice about their use of cookies on this blog. Apparently, they use them. I DO NOT NOW, NOR HAVE I EVER USED COOKIES, the computer kind that is. Send you objections to cookies to Google, not me, please. For me, I usually just clear my browser of all cookies when I close it.

We'll start with M49, an elliptical galaxy.

M58

M59 and friends. I count at least 4 more galaxies in this image.

M61. NGC4303 is the fuzzy at the 4 o'clock position,

M60 and friends. At least 3, probably4, more galaxies here.

M84, left, and M86 right and 2 other bright-ish friends. Actually, about 40 galaxies in this one, most too dim to see.

M87, the bright one in the center.

M89.

M90. I might come back to this one next year. Again, look for the fuzzies. At least 3 more here.

M104/NGC4594. This is interesting, too. Notice the dark dust lane at the "top". AKA Sombrero Galaxy.

Two small promeninces on left side, plauge about 9 o'clock on surface and the black granules are called, amazingly, granulation.