Todays clear skies brought the opportunity to do a little solar observing. Given how cold its been at night, this is a nice addition to the hobby.

I’ve almost got the focusing down for imaging. Views come quickly into focus, but through the view finder of my Sony camera, its still a bit of a struggle. This shot was the best I’d could muster in the alloted time. I’m hoping to work through the details a bit more rigorously in the coming weeks.

Anyway, here’s a trio grouped tightly together. Just to put things in perspective, each of these solar prominences are larger than our entire planet. These are some truly massive events. If you just think about the amount of matter and energy involved, it really helps to put things in perspective.

Astro Photo Details:

* Designation: The Sun
* Magnitude: roughly mag -27 * Size: roughly 1/2*

Astro Photo Processing Details

* Sony DSC-F717 Digital Camera
* 1/50s at ISO200
*PhotoShop CS2 Curves (mac version)
* Coronado Solar Max 40 Solar Telescope

As luck would have it, skies cleared here in Park City and I got word (via Spaceweather.com) that there was a nice prominence visible on the Sun. I figured I’d take a few minutes out of a busy morning to see what all the fuss was about. Wow! What a sweet view. Not one, but two prominences jumped right out at me. Sweet! I enjoyed the view for a while and then decided that this was simply too nice not to be imaged.

This was my first success at imaging through the new scope, a Coronado Solar Max 40 solar telescope.  I’d had a couple of failed attempts previously. It seems that I need a bit more back focus than I was getting. I kept fiddling with this until I got to focus. I had to have the eyepiece pulled half way out of the diagonal before the image got sharp. I’ll pull together some sort of tube extender for my next effort. Anyway, I was quite happy to see that this actually came out close to what I was able to observe. I say close, because there was a bunch of detail on the surface of the Sun that did not appear in my image. As my target was the prominence, this wasn’t too big of a deal, but… going forward, I’ll need to get this resolved as well.

Astro Photo Details:

* Designation: The Sun
* Magnitude: roughly mag -27 * Size: roughly 1/2*

Astro Photo Processing Details

* Sony DSC-F717 Digital Camera
* 1/50s at ISO200
*PhotoShop CS2 Levels (mac version)
* Coronado Solar Max 40 Solar Telescope

I’ve always enjoyed viewing our star. Watching sunspots grow and morph over time has always fascinated me. Up until the arrival of my new Coronado Solar Max 40 telescope, this has meant that solar flares and coronal mass ejections were off limits. CME’s are some of the most spectacular views in astronomy, so adding them to my list of observing targets is a big plus.

My first thoughts when unboxing the Solar Max was…its cute. I mean that in a positive way :)  It is a 40mm f/10 aperture. That’s a 400mm focal length… or about a 16″ telescope. Many folks have larger aperture binoculars (i do).  The scope is a beauty though. Craftsmanship is definitely a priority for Coronado. This is as stout as a tiny telescope can get.

As the weather gods would have it after any optics purchase, skies have been cloudy with copious quantities of snow falling for the last several days (over 2 feet in less than a week). The new year is expected to bring clear skies…. or so they say. Look for future updates on my progress with this beauty.