It is possible to take useful images of the Sun with modest equipment from a simple backyard location.

This past Saturday, after counting sunspots and sunspot groups visually, I hooked up a  Meade LPI webcam to the telescope to record a  sunspot group associated with NOAA Active Region 11445AR 11445 was just rotating into view from the Sun’s southeast limb.

The top  image is from my small (150mm)  reflector telescope. The telescope mount does not have a drive to turn the telescope in synch with the Earth’s rotation,  so the Sun’s image drifted through the field of view while I captured a stream of images as video sequence. I used the free Registax software to align, stack, and slightly process twenty-one of the best images from the video sequence.  The dark smudge under the sunspots was caused by a large fleck of dust inside the imaging device.

For comparison,  the bottom image shows the same area of the Sun taken at exactly the same time by NASA’s orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory.   Both images were taken on March 25, 2012, at 16:35:34 UT.

 

This is my solar observing rig.   It consists of a 150mm f/9 Newtonian reflector, an Orion full aperture solar filter, and a Meade LPI webcam.  The telescope aperture is stopped to 80mm by a piece of black felt with a circular cut-out on the inside of the solar filter.  The LPI images are captured as a video stream on a netboook computer using K3CCD Tools. The netbook is just barely visible on the table beside the telescope.

The Sun on January 1, 2012, as seen through the 50 mm f/4 Stellarvue finderscope mounted on the 150 mm reflector telescope that I use for doing visual sunspot counts. The image was acquired using a humble Meade Lunar Planetary Imager (LPI) with an inexpensive black polymer filter across the main lens of the finderscope.

On this day, the seeing was quite poor with high cirrus clouds passing across the face of the Sun.  In any event, the day’s relative sunspot number by visual count (through the 150 mm scope) was 43.  This image shows several small sunspot groups.  The larger telescope that I used to visually count  sunspots was able to show many individual sunspots within each group.

Image & Equipment Details:
1 January 2012
18:34:02 UT
Stellarvue 50 mm f/4 Finderscope
Rainbow Symphony Black Polymer Solar Filter
Meade LPI 60 frames
Seeing poor (through high cirrus clouds)
K3CCD_0001_20120101_123402_ST60_web1.jpg
Image captured using K3CCDTools.


Eyepiece Sketch (30X) January 24, 2010, 1825 UT
SOHO January 24, 2010 1605 UT
Observation DataJanuary 24, 2010 1825 UT
Edmond, Oklahoma USA
Seeing: Poor
Sunspot Groups (G): 2
Sunspots (S): 9
Sunspot Number (W): 29
W = (G *10) + S
W = (2 * 10) + 9
W = 29
Telescope: 150 mm f/9 Newtonian  stopped to 80 mm.
Eyepieces: 26 mm (50X) and 2X Barlow (100X).
Filter: Orion full aperture.
Sunspot Number = 29Sunspot No. = W
Sunspot Groups = G
No. Sunspots = S
W = (G *10) + S
W = (2 * 10) + 9
W = 29