​We had our first full day of sunshine after many weeks of rain to take a lovely picture of the Sun with my Lunt solar telescope.
 
There were some lovely prominences firing away on the western limb with one of them arcing out into space and curving back toward the limb. You can see the sunspots AR3023, 3024, 3026 & 3027 all nearing the western of the solar surface.
 
The images were taken with a Lunt 60mm PT solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached.
 
(Two sets of 20 images were taken with two different exposures to capture the solar disc and the faint prominences and then those two images were combined in PS)

This was the beautiful view this evening at 6.20pm with the large open star cluster Hyades in Taurus going down in the pretty pink twilight sky in the west. I was hunting for planet Mercury that was near the Pleiades, but it was hidden further down on the horizon behind the treetops!

A little later at 6.35pm the Constellation of Orion was also following with still the pretty colours of purple and pink in the twilight sky. 

I have finally made it out to my Stardust Observatory for the May new Moon long weekend after many months of flooding rain here in Queensland.  I’ll post more images if I’m lucky enough to get a couple of clear nights of observing :-)
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These two Images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a 28-400mm lens on a camera tripod; the Hyades image was an exposure of 6 seconds and ISO640. The Orion image was an exposure time of 8 seconds and ISO2500; both are just a single image.

​I was very surprised to capture so much detail on the solar surface because of all the cloud in the sky today.
 
There was a lot of activity around the biggest sunspot groups AR 2993 and AR 2994 and that prominence on the lower western limb was really firing away…but alas, the cloud then completely covered the whole sky and that was the end of that!
 
My images were taken with a Lunt 60mm PT solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached :-D

I’m now starting to also capture images in the monochrome settings within the camera, as I find with this setting there is more delicate detail in the prominences. I’m not very good yet at artificially colouring the Sun in Photoshop, so I’ll stick to my colour images for the time being.

There were some really nice long and very dark filaments on the surface of the Sun today around active sunspot group AR 2978 and AR 2981. The other very active sunspot groups AR 2975 and AR 2976 are now close to the western limb and may produce some really lovely prominences in the next 36 hours.
 
My image was taken with a Lunt 60mm PT solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached. Two sets of images were taken one for the solar disc and one for the prominences and combined in PS.

The conditions were not ideal with so much cloud in the sky, but I did mange to get some photos of this large sunspot group AR 2975 & AR 2976 before the whole sky clouded over just after midday. It was very hot today taking pictures of the Sun at 33C…hot, hot, hot!
 
The images were captured with a Lunt 60mm solar scope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached. 20 images were captured one set for the solar disc and one set for the faint prominences and combined in PS CS4.
 
The DSLR camera settings for the disc of Sun was exposure 1/500th second and ISO100, for the faint prominences the exposure was 1/15th second and ISO 200.

We’ve had some strange colourful sunsets in the western sky for the past couple of days here on the Gold Coast.  Then I realised from some postings on Spaceweather.com that it could be aerosols in the atmosphere from the volcanic plume left over from the Tonga-Hunga eruption.
 
Thank you Peter Lowenstein from Zimbabwe & Tara Williams from Pottsville NSW for highlighting this with your postings on Spaceweather.
https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=183195
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https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=183147
 
I got really excited to see what I could capture but had to drive up to Mt Tamborine to get a good western horizon, so I grabbed my husband and said we were going on an adventure, told him to grab a beer and lets go…
 
After the Sun had set, we waited and watched the sky above where the Sun has set and you could definitely see the aerosols in the sky all along the horizon and up into the sky.

​As the time went by, you could then see crepuscular rays forming in this material. I was so pleased to have made the effort to drive up the mountain; it was well and truly worth it :-)
 
Images taken with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm lens, my husband took the image of my taking photos with his iPhone :-)

Please go to NASA’s JPL Earth Science website to read more on this eruption at:
Tonga Eruption Sent Ripples Through Earth’s Ionosphere
Feb. 4, 2022
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/tonga-eruption-sent-ripples-through-earths-ionosphere
 
When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, 2022, it unleashed a violent explosion with the equivalent force of 4 to 18 megatons of TNT, according to estimates from NASA geologist Jim Garvin.
 
This explosion produced an acoustic shockwave that was strong enough to perturb the ionosphere, the outer layer of the atmosphere that starts about 50 to 56 miles (80 to 90 kilometers) above Earth’s surface and contains electrons ionized by the Sun’s energy.
 
Further reading at:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149367/dramatic-changes-at-hunga-tonga-hunga-haapai 
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149474/tonga-volcano-plume-reached-the-mesosphere

​Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

During a wild stormy afternoon thunderstorm, these incredible Mammatus clouds developed in the western sky along with a faint rainbow in the eastern sky.
 
What was really strange after the storm had passed was that you could still see this running lightning firing all across the eastern sky with a rainbow still in the sky!
It was related to that band of cloud you can see in the foreground of the lightning pictures.
 
I’ve taken some screen shots from the movie to show the awesome branching lightning, this movie was taken with an iPhone on movie mode...it was all quite eerie!
 
We’ve had dreadful floods all over Queensland these past two weeks and the rain is relentless, these severe thunderstorms are because it’s so humid and hot at 36 degrees and there’s so much moisture in the air.
 
Hopefully we will get some clear weather soon…

My Image was taken on the evening of the 6th March during a severe storm with an Apple iPhone on movie mode; this image is a screen capture of the lightning strike.

I was so surprise that the phones camera was able to capture these lightning bolts so well. The storm hit so fast and so quick I was unable to set up all my other camera gear…. but I’m very happy with this image :-)
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How did I take the image, just aimed the iPhone camera at the sky on movie mode and recorded it. Downloaded it onto my Mac in QuickTime and did a screen shot when the lightning bolt flashed!

​There was an extremely active prominence on the north eastern limb of the Sun late in the afternoon on the 21st February 2022.
 
When I showed this picture to my husband he smiled and said it looks like a shark cruising around the limb of the Sun with its big fin :-D
 
You can just make out the active old sunspot AR 2936 returning on the eastern limb that has been re-numbered AR2954. There are also a few interesting looking filaments and active flares on the surface of the solar surface, its now getting so exciting looking at the Sun!
 
The images were captured with a Lunt 60mm solar scope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached. 30 images were captured one set for the solar disc and one set for the faint prominences and combined in PS CS4….
 
The DSLR camera settings for the disc of Sun was exposure of 1/320th second and ISO100, for the faint prominences the exposure was 1/15th second and ISO 200.

​~ Erupting prominence on the north eastern limb of the Sun 19th February 2022 ~
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Yesterday morning there was an awesome erupting prominence on the north eastern limb of the Sun that looked like tongues of fire!
 
The images were taken with a Lunt 60mm solar scope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached.
​30 were captured and stacked in RegiStax6 one set for the disc and one set for the prominences and combined in PS CS4.