2.09.2021 Shutter top boards and imaging.

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Thursday 2nd 56-68F. Overcast and then rather cloudy before the sun broke through.

I spent the morning trimming plywood to make a set of top shutter boards. It is not easy to achieve a perfect fit when the tapered facets expand and shrink along the length of the shutters. I now have two x 12mm boards ready for one shutter.

I shall glue and screw them together. Then use a sturdy bracket to fix the finished board to the outer rib. The inner rib has to be bridged to clear the zenith board.

With the sun out and AR2860 falling off the western edge of the sun I ought to have a look at imaging this afternoon.  There have been new spots appearing over the eastern limb. Though not on the scale of AR2860. 

The seeing conditions were awful. So I went back to working on the top shutter board. I found another 12mm off-cut large enough for another layer in the middle at right angles. 

So now the board is a sturdy 36mm of Baltic birch plywood. Glued up and clamped in place to ensure the best fit where it sits inside the GRP shutter. I have brackets aplenty to ensure it doesn't flex in use. I shall return to imaging later.

The seeing conditions were still poor when I returned to imaging. There were four unique areas of interest. AR2860 was sliding round the western limb. Still looking very active.

With a jet like prominence centred on it. Probably a filaprom. Though I couldn't capture the prom section.

I went from each AR to the next repeatedly trying to draw out the detail. It was never going to be spectacular. The seeing did not become more transparent nor particularly steady.

The trees beckoned the sun all too soon. Well before I could do justice to AR2863. A clear spot with filaments and bursting with flares.

 

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