18.06.2021 Day 2 of the Heat Wave.

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Friday 18th 68F, bright and calm, but cloudy. The sky looks like milk. There isn't enough of a breeze to cool things down. A rare view of the 6" f/10 H-alpha telescope from the north.

11.00 77/71F [Inside/outside] Set up for imaging but still waiting for the cloud to clear. Centered and focused on AR12833. I grabbed a brief glimpse of the sun, through cloud,  but the resulting image was hopeless. The seeing is soft and misty. The sky is similar. A mixture of cumulus and higher cloud. Milky white instead of blue in the gaps.

The tops of the trees are moving. So I have opened the doors out to the former veranda to try for whatever breeze is going. The new building exterior cladding is blocking off what was once open mesh fencing. Still, every little helps.

Here is a valuable resource for solar enthusiasts: It provides up to date images of the sun in various lights [frequencies.] Even the far side!

https://www.solarmonitor.org/index.php

11.53. 79/72 Very cloudy. First usable image today. Some flaring and Ellerman bombs north of AR12833. I am using an 800x800 frame size and cropping. 

11.59. 80/72F. Hardly any better. The better seeing conditions of the last few days have gone. No real detail visible on the monitor.

12.50 82/73F Hotter still, but no improvement in seeing conditions.

14.00. 85/80F Seeing hopeless. Giving up until later. Turned the dome to the north. 

 

 

 

18.20 The seeing was improved enough for the 2.6x GPC but nothing like the lest few days. The detail was very soft on the monitor.

18.42 and 18.46. AR 12833 and a filament to the east of AR12833. 

I captured up until the last moments when the trees eclipsed the sun.

 

 

 

 

19.10 80/71F. Once the sun had gone behind the trees I turned the telescope onto the Moon. Just in time for total sky coverage in high dappled cloud. The moon is now invisible. The temperature is now quite pleasant.

19.30 I have the moon focused but the thin high cloud has reduced contrast beyond ridiculous. The sky is still very light. In fact it hardly gets fully dark at this time of year at 55N. Dinner beckons and the moon is still reasonably high at 36° & 137° and still climbing towards the meridian.

21.15 75/68F. Back after dinner. I'm doing a meridian flip without using Flip. Flip has never worked. The telescope had stopped at the Meridian so I just slewed to the Moon again and it obeyed. The sky is still milky but I can see the moon. Of course the slew missed by  mile.

21.22 Contrast still completely absent on the monitor. Thermal agitation of the image. ImPPG still managed to produce a recognizable image. Note the fine Newton's Rings.   

I'm going to try again later when the sky is darker. The thin cloud may be gone by then.

 

22.07 The moon is brightening against the sky. The thin cloud seems to have gone. The image is still shaking.

 

 

 

 

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