December 2016

December 29th 1705 GMT

I bin scanned Venus. I could not estimate the phase but it seemed decidedly "egg-shaped".

Its published phase was 81%.

December 29th 1110 GMT

The Sun looked quiet again in hydrogen alpha light but, as the day before, took some full disc and close-up shots.

December 28th 1445 GMT

A solar bin scan did not reveal any sunspots, even though the sky was clear.

December 28th 1100 GMT

Finally, some proper clear daytime sky! The Sun was very quiet, though, and no amount of etalon tuning, detuning and retuning could bring out any noticeable detail. I took some full disc and close-up shots.

 

 

 

 

December 26th 1300 GMT

It was more clear later in the day, so I took some full disc and close-up shots.

 

December 26th 0950 GMT

It was hazy but I checked the Sun in hydrogen alpha light with my PST. I could not see anything visually, I took some full disc shots but there was not enough light to do any close-ups.

 

 

December 22nd 1120 GMT

 Finally some clear sky! Despite reports of sunspots being seen the day before, I could not see any in my binoculars.

December 14th 1305 GMT

I bin scanned the Sun. It was hazy but clear enough to see limb darkening. I did not see any sunspots, though.

December 12th 1830 GMT

I caught a small gap in the clouds to take a few frames of the Moon at 300mm focal length, ISO 400 and 1/4000 second exposure. The focus was a bit out.

 

 

December 11th 0930 GMT

To be honest, had I seen more of the Sun mid-week, I'd have given it a miss. I managed just one shot in hydrogen alpha light that worked.

 

 

December 7th 1310 GMT

I bin scanned the Sun under hazy conditions and did not see any sunspots, even there were still some on the Big Bear images.

December 4th 1130 GMT

I bin scanned the Sun and saw a smaller sunspot that I hadn't seen in my PST. It was due to the additional aperture of my 70mm binoculars.

 

 

December 4th 1110 GMT

I checked the Sun with my PST. Apart from two sunspots, I could see no surface detail and no prominences. I took a few full disc and close-up shots but could not find the sunspots on the images. I planned to return outside to catch the sunspots in white light.

 

The first shot was composed of a single frame.

 

I had enough shots to try stacking the bottom left quadrant but the stack looked more like an egg! Oh well, single shot again.

Better with a single frame again.

... and again.

 

December 3rd 1820 GMT

I caught the Moon and Venus close together in the west and took a series of shots.

 

The first was a deliberately-overexposed shot of eight seconds to catch some background stars.

 

The second shot was a more "regulation" lunar shot composed of 3 frames.

I deliberately WAY over-exposed the Moon using 1/100 second exposure to catch the dark side.

OK, could do better!!

December 1st 1305 GMT

The weather forecast had originally been cloudy but it was clear when I saw the sunspots that were about to rotate off and (finally!) a new one.