Here are two mosaics of the Sun stitched together with images collected on Wednesday afternoon. These images were taken with a Nikon D90 through a 12″ Meade SCT fitted with an H-alpha filter. The first mosaic is of the full disc of the Sun. There are some details, but the glare of the photosphere, even through the very narrow passband of an H-alpha filter, limits what can be seen in the chromosphere and corona. In the second image, the transfer curve for image was manipulated to eliminate the photosphere and highlight the chromosphere and corona. Notice on the lower right portion of the limb, there is one small, bright, prominence, and several faint and larger prominences. (since the image is inverted, this would be the north-eastern side of the limb.
Full disc mosaic of the Sun in H-alpha emission.Full-disc image of the chromosphere and lower corona in H-alpha.
Ok, it’s not the greatest picture, but we still are dealing with the wind shaking the telescope. You can see a couple of sunspots from, though. These are spots associated with the new solar cycle, #24. Note their latitude. Sunspots early in a solar cycle will form at high latitudes at first. Later in the cycle, these spots will appear at lower and lower latitudes as the Sun’s magnetic field gets more and more twisted. More Sun pics are coming, but it will take me a while to work through the processing. Sunspots from Solar Cycle 24 Faint prominences hovering above the chromosphere.
