The PST and Me, 2004/9/4

[Dave Mitsky]

Date: 2004/9/4
Time: 2:10 to 2:20 p.m. EDT (18:10 to 18:20 UT)
Conditions: Mostly clear
Temperature: 29 degrees Celsius
Atmospheric pressure: 1006 millibars

I am just having a blast with my PST. I've used it almost every day this past week and have seen something interesting each time. For example, on Thursday afternoon I noted 4 loop prominences, more than I've ever seen before at one time.

On Saturday afternoon there were some very extensive prominences on the Sun's leading limb that immediately caught my attention as did the long filament that has been working its way across the disk the past few days. I inspected the penumbral area of AR10667 (originally AR10649 or Sunspot 649) to see if I could see any hint of the phenomenon known as filigree that David Knisely mentioned on Cloudy Nights when discussing Paul Hyndman's excellent H-alpha image of September 3rd. I thought perhaps I did but it may have been just my imagination. During this relatively short solar observing session I used an 8-24mm Vixen zoom eyepiece and a 7mm Nagler T6.

Dave Mitsky

[blueshift]

Dave,


So what is a PST? It sounds like "solar telescope" is what the last 2 letters
stand for...Prominance? Some special filter that beats H-Alpha?

blueshift

[Dave Mitsky]

I'll repeat some of what I said in an earlier post. The P stands for Personal as in Personal Solar Telescope. The Coronado PST is a dedicated 40mm f/10 sub-Angstrom H-alpha telescope that utilizes a 22mm diameter etalon filter. It's the cheapest way to enter the world of H-alpha solar observing.

http://www.coronadofilters.com/cgi/display...talog.cgi?w=800 (http://www.coronadofilters.com/cgi/display_catalog.cgi?w=800)


Dave Mitsky

[Richard0802]

What a great time to begin observing the Sun either by telescope solar projection onto a white card or Hydrogen-Alpha eyepiece filter. Our sun has been very active these last 18 months with far more sunspots, some quite large, and big prominences too. This has taken solar astronomers by surprise. We know of the 11-year sunspot cycle from minima (no sunspots) to maxima (many sunspots). We also know of the 20+ year magnetic sunspot cycle where the sun’s magnetic field winds itself up, then breaks free followed by a change in the magnetic sunspot polarity from Plus to Minus.
We may now be seeing another solar cycle, al albeit, long period. 225 years ago we were in the middle of the so-called Maunder-minimum 1645-1715 when there were relatively no sunspots visible on the rotating sun for a period of 70 years. Earth conditions at that time were of a mini ice age. Maxima probably occurring in mid 2003. Earth conditions at present: global warming and gradual thinning of our atmosphere due to high numbers of coronal mass ejections.
Therefore we have unanswered questions; how long will the present large sunspot activity last?
Will the Sun’s activity eventually slow to another Maunder type minima around the year 2229? Bearing in mind of course that we don’t know why our sun is behaving the way it is at the moment.
David your observations and photographs of the sun are fine, I would like to encourage many more fine amateurs like yourself to take up Solar astronomy so that we can get to understand our star a much better.

Richard Pearson
Science Correspondent