Yesterday's sun

Been looking at sunspot 898 using projection on and off over the last week. Got my solar film yesterday so it was straight out to get a view.

898 is massive. Apparently it is larger than our own planet. It should be viewable for the coming week.

I've uploaded a shot of the full disk.
www.flickr.com/photos/67953577@N00/181624335/

Taken with:

Dynax 7D at prime + 2x barlow on a Televue Ranger (70mm) refractor.
Filters: Baader Astrosolar 3.8 (photo), Baader Continuum, IR Cut filter.
8 images stacked in Registax, plus levels in PS Elements.

Pure luck but this combination nicely fills the ccd, no cropping required.
The barlow must have been attacked by the proverbial dust bunnies but I cleaned alot of that up in Photoshop (as I forgot to take a flat frame, D'oh).


Trev

Wow, thats big ! I wonder could that be a seen with the naked eye (+ filters).
Still cloudy here so no chance of me seeing it.

Wow that looks huge - what class is it? could we get an RRA?

DaveG

Very nice image Trevor. Good colour balance, great foucs and good contrast. Good foucs on the granulation. That's about as good a photo as anyone could get of the full disc, especially for a 70mm scope.

Yep, it's certainly large alright

Just noticed that they think the sunspot may be in the first stages of breaking up, so I'll try and get some more shots over the next few days if the sun comes out.

Here are some amazing pics that some of the Spaceweather viewers took of the object.

spaceweather3.com/swpod2006/03jul06/newton.jpg
spaceweather3.com/swpod2006/05jul06/Ashraf.jpg
spaceweather3.com/swpod2006/03jul06/Ashraf.jpg

Trev

Just noticed that they think the sunspot may be in the first stages of breaking up, so I'll try and get some more shots over the next few days if the sun comes out.

Its starting to break up alright. Its gone from almost spherical to a more elongated shape and has split into at least two distinct peices.