AstronomyTales Astrophotography by Michael Booth

Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Reprocess of Old Data from 2019 Eta Cariinae

May 2024 Reprocess with Pixinsight and Photoshop. 6x 300 second frames (total 30 Minutes) with Canon 550D and 150mm Matsukov.

Original from 2019 processed in Nebulosity and PixInsight.

Thursday, May 2, 2024

Solar Activity Ist May 2024

IT'S VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU NEVER LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN WITHOUT SUITABLE EYE PROTECTION/ FILTRATION see

https://www.bintel.com.au/product-category/accessories/solarfilters/

FOR DETAILS.

These aren't the world's greatest solar images. They are basically just smart phone snaps held over the eyepiece of a telescope. This is especially evident with the red Ha filter shots as visually through an eyepiece the Sun's chromosphere is much sharper with the granular detail of the surface evident to the naked eye and far superior to these shots. However the white light shot does approximate well the view to the eye through the eyepiece.

White Light Filter . The Sun's Photosphere, the layer just beneath the Chromosphere, emits this more familiar view of the disc and sunspots (right) which represent a relative cooling where magnetic field lines are twisted and converging.

Ha(Hydrogen Alpha) filter(Coranado PST). Visible are some features of the Sun's surface (Chromosphere). A dark line or filament(lower left) represents active prominences that are face on, while on the limb on the right you can see prominences like wisps of flame against the black background.

Enhanced View where you can see these and others with a number looking detached.

Alas the Sun does set, or does Earth turn?😉 Anyway the trees provide some artistic relief.

Here just below the filament is still visible.

The white light filter image is from the larger and shinier telescope, a William Optics ZS 70mm refractor with solar filter attached at the front. Red Light Ha images are from the smaller gold coloured Coranado PST(Personal Solar Telescope) which is a dedicated solar telescope with the filtration built in. The mount is a good old EQ2 mount with motor tracking in RA(Right Acsenion that enables automated East to West movement of the mount to track the sun as the Earth moves).