12.04.2020 Solar H-a and White Light.

*

Sunday 12th. 9.30. Sunshine so I set up. Had to enter AWR time and location.[Again!] 

Almost found the sun on the first C-Du-C slew.

9.43. First image: There should be two pale spots in the east of the disk but I can't see anything so far. Seeing not bad with bodily wobbles of the image on the monitor.

10.18 Tried white light using the Lacerta 2" Herschel prism. Just removed the PST etalon, helical focuser and BF. It needed a 50mm 2" extension to reach sharp focus.

11.00 The 6" provided sharp and steady seeing. No disturbance visible in the granulation. I tried all my GPCs and Barlows while carefully monitoring the 27" computer screen. I tried all frame sizes with each lens on the camera nose as I slowly drove the field of view all over the disk.

If there had been anything obvious to see in white light on the disk I should have seen it. The granular surface was very clear but devoid of anything interesting except subtly paler spots here and there. The sun's image on the Lacerta heat sink was bright red thanks to the filters left in place.

11.11 Back to H-alpha and the proms are insignificant. Have ringed an H-a image of the paler spots in the east. There is thin cloud making the sky milky white and slightly obscuring the sun.

*