We had such a beautiful clear day here today, so I raced home and spent most of the day imaging our Sun with my different cameras and telescopes to capture these two big sunspots.
 
Active region AR2740 has now split up which can be seen quite clearly and the new sunspot AR2741 has a very dark umbra and a large penumbra area surrounding it.
It looks like this one is going to be quite an active sunspot too!
 
These images were taken with my 127mm refractor telescope with a glass solar filter attached using a Canon 700D camera. The first image was taken with a ZWO ASI 120MC-S camera with a 2x Barlow lens.

Late yesterday afternoon at 4pm (AEST) I got the biggest thrill when I put my little 60mm Lunt solar telescope onto my mount and pointed it at the Sun and saw AR2740 going off like a rocket!!! These four images were taken over just 10 minutes in duration and it was very exciting to watch and capture.
 
If you look closely at the active region (middle of image) you’ll see the solar material being blasted away and travelling across the surface of the Sun as a dark mass of plasma…a small CME in motion!
 
I was very lucky to capture this event as the Sun was getting very low and I’d just packed away my refractor telescope, I just thought I would take a peek at the Sun in H-alpha to see if it was doing anything exciting…and Wow, it was!
 
Images taken with a Lunt 60mm solar scope and a ZWO ASI 120MC-S camera at prime focus, I captured AVI movie files and stacked them in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4…there was also a small prominence on the eastern limb so maybe there is another sunspot coming….
 
Note from Noeleen:
If you watch the slideshow you will see the path of the solar material being blasted away from the Sun
​over just a few minutes...Wow!

The next day an image of this solar flare from the Solar Dynamics Observatory was posted on Spaceweather.com 
http://www.spaceweather.com
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov​

After so long with no activity on the surface of the Sun we now have a huge active sunspot designated AR2740 which is the twice the size of Earth.  I set up both my telescopes this afternoon and finally the clouds cleared long enough to take some images. I had to be quick because clouds were rolling across the sky!
 
For the full disc of the Sun I used a Meade 80mm refractor telescope with a solar filter attached and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens, the exposure time was 1/320th second and ISO 200. For the high magnification image I used a ZWO ASI 120MC-S camera with a 2x Barlow lens, 2000 frame AVI file stacked in RegiStax6.

Information from Spaceweather.com on the 6th May 2019
 
ACTIVE SUNSPOT: Big sunspot AR2740 is turning toward Earth and crackling with solar flares. The most intense so far registered M1 on the Richter Scale of Solar Flares.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash on May 6th.
http://www.spaceweather.com
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov
https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov

​Sunspot AR2733 is now degrading after it unleashed a C5 class solar flare on the 26th January, it’s now heading toward the western limb of the Sun. Perhaps we may see a lovely prominence on the solar edge as it rotates out of view…now that would be nice to see if the weather is fine :-)
 
Images taken with a 127mm refractor telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2X Barlow lens attached, 5 images stacked in RegiStak6 and processed in PS CS4. Exposures were 1/250th second and ISO200.

(Right) I used my 127mm refractor with an Orion glass solar filter attached for safe viewing and taking pictures of the solar surface.
 
(DANGER…NEVER look at the Sun without proper solar filters on your camera lenses and telescopes)
 
Please see below a small movie of the explosion from AR2733 taken on the 26th January from
NASA’s SDO observatory.

​I had another peek at the Sun late yesterday afternoon and Yep…it’s spotless again! 
​
When I turned around and looked up to the east I spotted a lovely gibbous Moon in a clear blue sky,
​which looked very pretty :-)
 
Both images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens with a 2x telecoverter making a focal length of 1280mm.

A glass solar filter was attached to the lens for safe viewing and imaging of the Sun.

Yay! There’s a new sunspot on the Sun today for the New Year and it’s been designated AR2732, it’s quite small and faint but it may turn into something exciting for us solar observers :-)
 
Images taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm with a 2x teleconverter, a glass solar filter was attached to the lens for safe viewing and imaging of the solar surface. 10 images were stacked in RegiStak6 and lightly processed in PS CS4…Happy New Year to everyone!

Christmas Day Sun Today :-)
Our beautiful Sun today on Christmas Day after weeks and weeks of rain and thunderstorms…Merry Christmas to all and happy holidays!
 
I just had to add a Santa hat to our very bland Sun for fun :-)
 
Image taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens with a 2x teleconverter attached, a glass solar filter was fitted to the lens for safe viewing and imaging. Exposure time was 1/500th second and ISO200.

~ Current information on the Sun ~
 
The Sun is now experiencing a period of solar minimum with over 200 days this year without sunspots on its surface, gone are the days when so much activity could be see on the surface of the Sun…I really miss all the excitement!
 
The image (left and above) of the Sun that I took on Christmas Day is completely bland and spotless!
​
To safely take images of the solar surface you must always use a solar filter on the lens of your camera or telescope. I haven’t even used my Lunt 60mm (Ha) solar telescope much this year as the Sun has been very quite in this H-alpha wavelength as well.
 
But there has been another type of activity on the Sun that’s quite intriguing, and that is these corona holes that open up and expel subatomic solar particles throughout the solar system. They are not as powerful as a CME but they still produce some awesome aurora when they hit our atmosphere.
 
When these solar particles hit the oxygen and nitrogen in our Earths atmosphere they excite the gases and release a photon of light that produces the coloured curtains of light of the auroras.
 
It was one of these incredible episodes that produced the stunning northern lights  (Aurora Borealis) that my husband and I witnessed in March 2018 when we were on board the Hutigruten ship called the Nordkapp that cruised up and down the Norwegian coastline. Wow…what a magical experience that was!!!!

~ The Northern Lights in the Arctic Night ~
My aurora image won a David Malin award this year in the Nightscapes section. If you go to the link you will see my picture and all the other stunning astronomy images that won awards this year at: https://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/news_events/astrofest/awards/

The golden sunset yesterday afternoon on North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribab) was just so beautiful. As the tide was coming in on the beach at Adder Point I was able to capture a pretty glitter path to the Sun, where you can see hundreds of little Suns reflected in the waves and on the water.
 
There are many ways to enjoy and capture our amazing Star the Sun :-)
 
Image was taken on the 27th August 2018 with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens set at 70mm and F11, the exposure time was 1/500th of a second and ISO 100.

To find out more about this beautiful island and its culture please go to the Queensland Governments website at:
https://www.npsr.qld.gov.au/parks/naree-budjong-djara/culture.html

There had been quite a lot of cirrocumulus cloud mixed with high cirrus clouds crossing the sky today which always makes me keep an eye out for atmospheric phenomena of any kind…especially Sundogs and solar halo’s.
 
But today I got a real treat; not only was there a lovely Sundog in the sky, there were also these unusual soft pastel streaks of thin coloured cloud between thicker layers of clouds, they were very pretty and striking in colour.
 
The colours are caused by the light from the Sun being diffracted out in the sky by the tiny ice crystals in the thin cirrus cloud which creates this rainbow like effect…it’s the first time I’ve ever seen it spread out so far across the sky like this :-)
 
If you would like to read more about these pretty iridescent clouds please go to Les Cowley’s excellent Atmospheric Optics website at: https://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/irid1.htm
 
Images were taken on the 7th August 2018 with just my point and shot Canon G15 camera that I always keep in my handbag; the camera was set on manual focus. 

I had some fun today taking these images of the Sun and Moon with just my camera and lens set up.
I used a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens plus a 2x telecoverter with a glass solar filter safely attached to the front of the lens, this made for a focal length of 1280mm, the camera was attached to a tracking HEQ5 mount.
 
I already had the tracking mount setup when I took some image earlier in the day with my solar telescope, and I thought…Hmmm, why not put my camera on the mount and track the sky, all I did was take the adapter bracket off the bottom of the Lunt solar scope and attached to the bottom of the Canon 70D camera and presto,
​I was on my way :-)
 
You can just make out the sunspot group AR2715 on the surface of the Sun and the Moon is in a waxing gibbous phase, during the evening I used the same lens at 18mm and took a wide field photo of Jupiter above the Moon with the constellation of Scorpius rising in the east…by this time the sky was very light from the Moon, but the scene looked very pretty in the night sky.
 
So how did I take the pictures, for both the Sun and the Moon images I did a burst of 20 images then stacked them in RegiStax6 and lightly processed them in PS CS4. The exposures for both objects is very short, the Sun 1/500th second and the Moon 1/250th second and ISO100 or ISO200.

These photos do really show that you can get some great astrophotography images even if you don’t have an expensive telescope. You can still take really good shots of both the Sun and Moon with just an ordinary camera tripod, but having a tracking mount like the one mentioned above does make it so much easier to take images.