Solar H-alpha

2008 02 11, 1214ST –1304ST (1714UT – 1804UT)

Equipment: Internally double stacked Maxscope 60mm, LXD75, 40mm ProOptic Plossl, 21-7mm Zhumell,

Sketch Media: Black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ and Prang pencils, white vinyl eraser.

Solar H-alpha

At first glance in h-alpha around 10x magnification, only two prominences, SSE and West, popped out at me.  I didn’t waste much time with the 40mm eyepiece since I usually use it for initially getting the Sun in the FOV.  At 19x the eastern prominence looked like two fingers curling towards each other with the southern most of the two a little brighter.  Taking the magnifications to 57x I could make out a very faint thin line connecting the two and also noted the strands of contrasted prominence within the two fingers at 33x. Seeing was much worse at the higher magnifications but I had moments where it settled for a detailed view.

Moving South at low magnification, the prominence appeared to be two separate entities with the westerly portion of it looking like a hook or letter C opening up to the East.  Increasing magnification with the zoom eyepiece, I was amazed to see with slight averted vision at first several connections between the two.  After discovering them, I could actually look at them straight on to make out the delicate network of strands.  It was truly beautiful and very delicate.

A similar thing happened to me with the western set of prominences.  The most northerly of the four on the western limb grew almost twice in size with a magnification of around 33x.  The prom itself didn’t grow, but rather my ability to see the actual size of it with a modest magnification.  The additional length of it disappeared at 57x.

The little set of prominences at the NNE limb became brighter as the session went and also became better defined with the lower one (more northerly) turning from a fuzzy little thumbprint into a thin branch reaching to the one that was more to the East.

I noticed a dark round dot around 40 degrees on the disk from the East and pretty much on the equatorial line.  It was very small and tweaking the Etalon did not show any signs of plage.  Other than that, there were no significant surface details such as plage or filaments to me visually.  The disk was alive with hairlike structures and a mottled appearance, very pretty.

Erika Rix is a Freelance Observer for Scientific Frontline®

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