Sun Again

On the morning of July 26^th, I imaged the sun again. It seems like Georgia has clouds almost every night lately, so no imaging of the one Messier item and any more Herschel items. Or Mars, Jupiter or Saturn. And then there is the fatigue that goes along with my current health issues, so I would have difficulty staying up too late, anyway.

So, what's on store for this entry? Not much. There were two prominences visible and one filament. The filament was so thin that it was almost impossible to pick up with the camera. The optics of the telescope and camera are such that it spread the thin filament out enough to make it almost invisible on it's “close up” shot, and just visible on the full disk shot. And I suspect strongly that the prominence (ie filament) was fading away as well, so there wasn't much to see.  As far as the prominences go, they were just visible when viewed through the eyepiece, and only a little more so when imaged. But, they are here. Bearing in mind that we are going through a solar minimum, I'm surprised to get this much. However, I'll take just about anything.

The filament (really?)

The above image shows what was left after the filament had a chance to start fading away; at least that's what I think was happening. Filaments are prominences that we see face on; ie, we are looking at the top of it toward the surface of the sun. As the prominence subsides, the contrast we see in temperature that makes it visible subsides as well. Hence, it becomes harder to see. The darkening below it appears to be a very small sunspot.

First of two small prominences.

Second of two small prominences. Notice how much more diffuse this one is. I suspect this would be similar to the filament.

 

 

Full disk showing location of filament and first prominence. This is a composite of 2 images. The filament looked better in the eyepiece, which I used before starting to image. I guess you had to be there. ??? The second prominence would be just out of site to the lower right, about the 5:30 position.