Photos by Fred Bruenjes, using DayStar solar filters and a Moonglow Technologies 2048x2048 15fps Gigabit camera.
Telescopes used:
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Filters used:
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DayStar Calcium Quark through 100mm F15 achromat and Pt Grey BFLY-PGE-23S6M-C camera; 2ms exposure, RegiStax of best 10 frames out of 100.
A nice prominence today! 111mm F7 refractor with 0.45Å DayStar. Poor seeing.
Displayed at NEAF 2010, this high resolution mosaic of the Sun shows prominences and surface in glorious detail. Click on the image below to be taken to a zoomable, full resolution version.
40"x40" (1.0x1.0 meter) high quality prints on photographic paper may be purchased from the ICSTARS web store.
One of the largest prominences in memory has been visible for the past couple days. 6" F8 refractor with 0.45Å DayStar. Good to excellent seeing.
Just days after solar minimum was officially declared to have passed, a nice group of activity swung around the limb. 6" F8 refractor with 0.45Å DayStar. Excellent seeing.
This active region has been sputtering about for a few days. Yesterday I enjoyed watching the field transition arch and filaments wavering about - I could almost see changes in real time visually. Today I imaged it with a 6" achromat right before sunset (thanks DST!).
Full disk view of the Sun on November 2, 2008, showing active region 11007 and some prominences. Taken with the new 0.55Å 60mm DayStar SolaREDi that includes a 4x Powermate inside and Moonlite Focuser.
Some nice prominences on the limb today. 0.45Å DayStar, 6" F8 refractor with 4x Powermate. I blew out the surface to give the best detail in the prominences. Average seeing.
Click here for a 15MB Flash-format time lapse movie of the Solar limb on May 3rd, 2008. Comprising 190 frames taken at 30 second intervals over 1.6 hours, it shows prominences, dancing spicules, and granulation. Average seeing. 6" F/8 refractor, 4x Powermate, DayStar 0.45Å H-alpha Quantum PE filter, 0.63x focal reducer. Cropped and reduced to 50% of original size.
This is through a SolaREDi 0.5 angstrom 35mm aperture Hydrogen Alpha telescope:
This is through a prototype 5 angstrom Calcium II H line SolaREDi:
This is with a DayStar 0.45Å Hydrogen Alpha:
This is with a DayStar 0.3Å Helium D3 Quantum PE:
This is with a 2" (~50mm clear aperture) DayStar 1.0Å Calcium II K Quantum PE:
This full disk H-alpha image is a mosaic of 23 individual frames. The sharpest frames were selected, then composited using PTGui, followed by colorization and sharpening in Photoshop. No stacking nor masking was used. The full res file is over 7000 by 7000 pixels, about two feet square at 300dpi!
Gigantic superdetailed 40x40 inch prints (shipped rolled) are for sale for $150, contact me to order.
Below is a closeup of active region 10933 at the full resolution of the file. It's a tad noisy since this is a single frame and has been sharpened, but nevertheless it demonstrates the subarcsecond resolution that is possible during good seeing with this equipment. The chromosphere (dark red band to the left of the Sun's surface) is about 6 arcseconds thick. The camera is of my own design, custom built for solar and lunar imaging, and may be commercially offered in the near future.
Can you spot it? Silhouetted against the prominence! This image has been highly processed to show the prominence, images below are more natural.
Mid transit. Atmospheric seeing is worsening as the Sun sinks lower in the sky, so the photos are getting blurrier.
Here's the equipment used for today's transit imaging. The optical path is: front aperture red ERF, 5" F8 refractor, 4x powermate, Daystar 0.45Å H-α filter, 0.63x SCT reducer/corrector, camera (based on KAI-0340DM chip), all mounted piggyback on an 8" F10 LX200. Yes, the mounting is VERY unstable and I had a lot of problems with wind shaking the scope.
Solar minimum chromosphere taken on September 3, 2006, through a Daystar 0.45Å University Hydrogen-α filter, full aperture 5" F8 refractor with 4x Powermate barlow, and custom built CCD camera. Single frame image, no stacking, no masking, no tricks. Exposure time TBD.
All text and images are © 2006-2008 Fred Bruenjes - All Rights Reserved. Image inlining is strictly prohibited. Email for permission before using an image or text.