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~ Large group of Sunspots on the solar surface 30th July 2024 ~

7/30/2024

Today there are many more sunspots on the Suns surface; activity is really firing up now with every day new sunspots developing, it’s very exciting!

White light images taken with a Seestar S50 telescope with a solar filter attached, 15 images captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

Information below is from Spaceweather.com on the 29th July 2024.
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=29&month=07&year=2024

SOLAR ACTIVITY IS HIGH: Sunspot complex AR3765-67 is crackling with strong flares--and they're getting stronger. An impulsive X1.5 flare this morning at 0237 UT caused a deep shortwave radio blackout over Japan, southeast Asia and Australia (map).

CANNIBAL CME ALERT: A series of M-class flares over the weekend hurled multiple CMEs toward Earth. According to a NOAA model, the first two CMEs merged to form a potent Cannibal CME. Strong G3-class geomagnetic storms are possible when it reaches Earth on July 30th.

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~ Mineral Full Moon rising on the 21st July 2024 ~

7/21/2024

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~ Happy 55 years Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing ~

We are having some lovely clear weather at the moment and last night was just beautiful with the full Moon rising in the evening sky. I’ve taken these images with the little Seestar S50 telescope and it was just so east to set up :-)

With a bit of contrast in processing you can see the colours of the minerals on the Moon’s surface very clearly, with the brown colour being iron rich areas and blue areas being titanium rich especially around the Sea of Tranquillity.

I captured 20 images and stacked them in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

To find out more about the minerals on the Moon go to the NASA link below, this is excellent for teachers, students and anybody who has an interest in the lunar surface.
https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/interaction/lmdp/documents/58199main_exploring_the_moon.pdf

JPL Photo Journal - PIA00131: Moon - False Color Mosaic
https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00131

Original Caption Released with Image:
This false-color mosaic was constructed from a series of 53 images taken through three spectral filters by Galileo's imaging system as the spacecraft flew over the northern regions of the Moon on December 7, 1992. The part of the Moon visible from Earth is on the left side in this view. The color mosaic shows compositional variations in parts of the Moon's northern hemisphere. Bright pinkish areas are highlands materials, such as those surrounding the oval lava-filled Crisium impact basin toward the bottom of the picture.

Blue to orange shades indicate volcanic lava flows. To the left of Crisium, the dark blue Mare Tranquillitatis is richer in titanium than the green and orange maria above it. Thin mineral-rich soils associated with relatively recent impacts are represented by light blue colors; the youngest craters have prominent blue rays extending from them. The Galileo project, whose primary mission is the exploration of the Jupiter system in 1995-97, is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

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~ Sprinkling of Sunspots all over the Sun on 19th July 2024 ~

7/19/2024

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It’s a lovely clear day here today for observing our beautiful Star, lots of small sunspots are sprinkled all over the solar surface with two larger active groups AR 3751 & AR 3759 in the centre of the solar disc.

White light images taken with a Seestar S50 telescope with a solar filter attached,
15 images captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

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Morning glory, a beautiful red coloured dawn 13th July 2024

7/13/2024

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I woke up very early to find that our bedroom was bathed in a soft red light; I jumped out of bed and looked outside to see this glorious red coloured dawn sky…Wow!

I ran quickly downstairs to grab my iPhone and flew outside to capture some images before it faded into the morning light.

What a beautiful sight to behold, the colours were amazing, now for some science :-)

The Colour of Clouds

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Rayleigh and Mie (Extract of article)
Some of the most picturesque clouds occur close to sunrise and sunset, when they appear in brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds. The colors result from a combination of Rayleigh and Mie scattering.

At sunrise and sunset, the Sun is low in the sky, and its light passes close to the Earth’s surface where the atmosphere is most dense. As light enters the atmosphere at this angle, it refracts with the greatest bend due to this higher density, causing the light's path to lengthen, further allowing for more Rayleigh scattering.

Most of the shorter blue wavelengths are scattered on this longer path, leaving the majority of longer waves to continue. As light continues to move through the atmosphere, yellow wavelengths are scattered leaving orange wavelengths.

Further scattering of orange wavelengths leaves red as the predominant color of sunlight.
Therefore, near sunrise and sunset, a cloud's color will be whatever sunlight color it receives after Rayleigh scattering. Mei scattering scatters all remaining wavelength colors equally within the cloud.

To continue reading more please go to the NOAA link below:
https://www.noaa.gov/jetstream/clouds/color-of-clouds

~ Morning Glory the sounds and beauty of dawn ~

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~ Image of Sun & AR3738 taken with ZWO Seestar S50 Review ~

7/12/2024

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~ The solar surface with large sunspot AR 3738 on the 12th July 2024 ~
Images taken with SeeStar telescope with solar filter

Oh my, I took my first images of the Sun with the little ZWO ‘Seestar S50’ smart telescope and all I can say is Wow!

The detail on the surface of the Sun (with attached solar filter) is quite amazing for such a small instrument;
you can also zoom in to 2x & 4x as shown with AR 3738 in the image posted.

I’m comparing this to a 80mm or 127mm refractor! Not only are the sunspots more detailed, within just a few minutes the unit had found the Sun and I was taking images without all the work of aligning a telescope mount and attaching a camera.

But there is a down side to this little telescope; the captured images are very small file sizes at only on average 100 KB (1920 x 1080) resolution, which is a shame.

I had to download the JPG images from the iPhone to the computer, then did my normal processing of stacking 15 images in RegiStax6 and processing them in PS. (I’ll also need to learn how to capture a AVI movie file)

Will I use it again to take pictures of the Sun, you bet I will because of the clear detail it shows on the solar surface, its portability and quick setup time.

It’s a little beauty and will add greatly to my love of observing our Sun in white light :-)

The little ZWO Seestar S50 with included solar filter attached ~

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~ Large group of Sunspots on the solar surface 30th July 2024 ~

~ Mineral Full Moon rising on the 21st July 2024 ~

~ Sprinkling of Sunspots all over the Sun on 19th July 2024 ~

Morning glory, a beautiful red coloured dawn 13th July 2024

The Colour of Clouds

~ Image of Sun & AR3738 taken with ZWO Seestar S50 Review ~

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