Solar activity?

Hi,

I got my first sheet of Baader film Wednesday, spent the night in the
kitchen making a filter cell and ring. I hurried home from work
Thursday and grabbed the scope (6" Newton) and ran outside prepared to
be wowed by solar flares and sunspots. I spent about an hour going
around and around the rim, and looking across the surface, but saw
nothing but a bright disk. Magnification was 75.

Is the sun often completely quiet so there is nothing to see? Do I
need more magnification to see solar activity?

Thanks!
Darryl

On 23 Jun 2006 07:37:44 -0700, wrote:

I got my first sheet of Baader film Wednesday, spent the night in the
kitchen making a filter cell and ring. I hurried home from work
Thursday and grabbed the scope (6" Newton) and ran outside prepared to
be wowed by solar flares and sunspots. I spent about an hour going
around and around the rim, and looking across the surface, but saw
nothing but a bright disk. Magnification was 75.

Is the sun often completely quiet so there is nothing to see? Do I
need more magnification to see solar activity?

Well, the Sun _is_ quiet now. But you need to be aware of just what you
can and cannot see when viewing the Sun in white light (which is what
you get with the Baader material). Sunspots will show very nicely- this
is the main viewing target with white light filters. Some solar flares
will also show, but these are really big ones that are especially rare
now that we are near solar minimum. Such white light flares show up as
bright spots on the disc of the Sun.

You won't ever see anything along the edges of the Sun with your filter.
Prominences and other mass ejections can only be seen in very narrow
band hydrogen-alpha filters.

Even though the face of the Sun is empty of sunspots at the moment, you
may still be able to tease out a bit of detail with your new filter and
a 75x scope. You can try higher magnification, but seeing tends to be
poor in the daytime and it may not be useful. The best strategy with the
Sun is just to wait a few days or weeks if you don't see anything. This
solar minimum cycle has been unusual for the amount of activity still
present.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

"Chris L Peterson" wrote in message
...
On 23 Jun 2006 07:37:44 -0700, wrote:

I got my first sheet of Baader film Wednesday, spent the night in the
kitchen making a filter cell and ring. I hurried home from work
Thursday and grabbed the scope (6" Newton) and ran outside prepared to
be wowed by solar flares and sunspots. I spent about an hour going
around and around the rim, and looking across the surface, but saw
nothing but a bright disk. Magnification was 75.

Is the sun often completely quiet so there is nothing to see? Do I
need more magnification to see solar activity?

Well, the Sun _is_ quiet now. But you need to be aware of just what you
can and cannot see when viewing the Sun in white light (which is what
you get with the Baader material). Sunspots will show very nicely- this
is the main viewing target with white light filters. Some solar flares
will also show, but these are really big ones that are especially rare
now that we are near solar minimum. Such white light flares show up as
bright spots on the disc of the Sun.

You won't ever see anything along the edges of the Sun with your filter.
Prominences and other mass ejections can only be seen in very narrow
band hydrogen-alpha filters.

Even though the face of the Sun is empty of sunspots at the moment, you
may still be able to tease out a bit of detail with your new filter and
a 75x scope. You can try higher magnification, but seeing tends to be
poor in the daytime and it may not be useful. The best strategy with the
Sun is just to wait a few days or weeks if you don't see anything. This
solar minimum cycle has been unusual for the amount of activity still
present.


Laura pretty much answered those questions already. As for being an
"unusual" solar minimum,
could you please explain that? The sun seems to be doing exactly what it is
supposed to be doing
during a minimum.

Darryl wrote:

I got my first sheet of Baader film Wednesday, spent the night in the
kitchen making a filter cell and ring. I hurried home from work
Thursday and grabbed the scope (6" Newton) and ran outside prepared to
be wowed by solar flares and sunspots. I spent about an hour going
around and around the rim, and looking across the surface, but saw
nothing but a bright disk. Magnification was 75.

Is the sun often completely quiet so there is nothing to see? Do I
need more magnification to see solar activity?

Hi Darryl,

Several things come to mind. First, unfortunately, the Sun is just now
coming out of the lowest activity point in the eleven-year cycle, so
sunspots are almost rare at the moment. Second, again unfortunately, you
won't be seeing much in the way of solar flares with a white-light filter
like the Baader film, as good as it is. To see plague, flares, filiments
and prominences requires a hydrogen-alpha setup and the cheapest way to get
into this game is with a Coronado PST (H-a). Coronado is now making a Ca-K
version of the PST, but from everything I've heard, this is not for visual
use, but shows tremendous surface detail in photographs taken with it.
Despite a lull in sunspot activity, there have been some amazingly large and
interesting prominences lately.

I didn't mean for this to be a downer - when sunspots do show themselves,
your Baader setup will show them in great detail!

The magnification you were using is fine for showing sunspots, but you may
want to increase it to see additional detail once sunspots become more
common.

Clear Dark Steady Skies, or, in this case, Clear Bright Sunlit Skies,
Dave Jessie

Thanks Everybody! Now that I know what to expect, I will know where to
concentrate my viewing time. I am also going to look into getting a
hydrogen-alpha filter.

Darryl

Astronomie wrote:

Is the PST a good buy for 40mm of aperture? Does it satisfy the solar
heart?

It's an amazing instrument, and shows all sorts of detail on
the sun - prominences, granulation, the works. The short
focal length isn't terribly photography-friendly, but people
do it, with good results. Do a search.

I actually bought mine on the way to the airport when I
was going to Turkey at the end of March. I dropped by the
local telescope store, who had one and were looking at the
sun with it. I thought this might be just the ticket for the
eclipse (I was taking my Bino-mites for the partial phases),
whipped out a credit card, and took it on the plane as a
carry-on.

Laura Halliday VE7LDH "Que les nuages soient notre
Grid: CN89mg pied a terre..."
ICBM: 49 16.05 N 122 56.92 W - Hospital/Shafte

On 23 Jun 2006 07:37:44 -0700, wrote:

I got my first sheet of Baader film Wednesday, spent the night in the
kitchen making a filter cell and ring. I hurried home from work
Thursday and grabbed the scope (6" Newton) and ran outside prepared to
be wowed by solar flares and sunspots. I spent about an hour going
around and around the rim, and looking across the surface, but saw
nothing but a bright disk. Magnification was 75.

Is the sun often completely quiet so there is nothing to see? Do I
need more magnification to see solar activity?

Sunspots are at a low ebb right now. A 6" telescope easily will show
sunspots when they are there to see. You will not see solar flares in
white light unless you are lucky. White light flares are extremely
rare, once in a lifetime events. Details like prominences take a
narrow band h-alpha solar filter. The nice thing about solar
observing is that you don't have to stay up late to do it.

On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 12:08:08 -0500, William Hamblen
wrote:

You will not see solar flares in
white light unless you are lucky. White light flares are extremely
rare, once in a lifetime events.

Hardly. I saw a half dozen or so during the last solar max, all over
just a couple of years. And I missed even more, only reading about them
after the fact. All it takes is an active Sun, a bit of luck, and a lot
of observing (or a lot of Internet monitoring with your scope handy).

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 15:14:45 GMT, " Astronomie"
wrote:

As for being an
"unusual" solar minimum,
could you please explain that? The sun seems to be doing exactly what it is
supposed to be doing during a minimum.

Even though the sunspot cycle has been normal, the overall activity has
been high for a minimum. There have been something around a dozen
X-flares in the last year, and several severe geomagnetic storms. A more
typical minimum (or the year before minimum) would have maybe two or
three X-flares. But we're also coming off an unusual maximum cycle, with
a split peak of sunspot count and flare activity. And the next maximum
is predicted to be above average in activity. We've only been able to
closely monitor the last three cycles, so maybe "normal" is a little
hard to define just yet.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Welcome to sunspot minimum. Sunspot activity runs in an 11-year
(or is it 22 year?) cycle, and we're currently at the low point
of a period of minimal activity. In white light, the Sun's
surface is just about featureless at present.

Clear skies,

-Paul W.

On 23 Jun 2006 07:37:44 -0700, wrote:

Hi,

I got my first sheet of Baader film Wednesday, spent the night in the
kitchen making a filter cell and ring. I hurried home from work
Thursday and grabbed the scope (6" Newton) and ran outside prepared to
be wowed by solar flares and sunspots. I spent about an hour going
around and around the rim, and looking across the surface, but saw
nothing but a bright disk. Magnification was 75.

Is the sun often completely quiet so there is nothing to see? Do I
need more magnification to see solar activity?

Thanks!
Darryl
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