Category: Solar Telescope - My Stardust Observatory

~ Wow! Large active Sunspots on eastern limb of Sun ~

8/28/2025

~ Wow! Active Sun Today 28th August 2025 ~

Wow! There was such a lot of activity on the solar surface today, I finally set up the ZWO ASI 174mm camera with the Lunt solar telescope and took some pictures of those very active sunspots on the eastern limb.

I was just blown away with the detail that this little camera was able to capture and I’ll use it from now on instead of the Canon 700D DSLR :-)

(Ha) images were taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope; the close up image was with a 2x Barlow lens attached to the ZWO camera.

The white light images were taken with a Seestar S50 with its attached solar filter, 20 images stacked in Registax6 and processed in PS.

~ White light image taken with little Seestar S50 telescope and attached solar filter ~

~ The active Sun with sunspot AR 4191 on 25th August 2025 ~

8/25/2025

Sunspot AR4191 is growing larger very quickly, there is also a lot of solar activity happening on the eastern limb with more sunspots and active prominences rotating into view.

The (Ha) image was taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x barlow lens attached. The white light images were taken with a Seestar S50 telescope and attached solar filter.

~ Complex Sunspot AR 4197 on Sun 31st August 2025 ~

7/31/2025

The Sun shows a completely different view with a dedicated (Ha) solar telescope, it’s so exciting seeing the surface of the Sun alive and active!

There’s a really interesting sunspot group designated AR 4197, it’s very large and active and has many smaller sunspots that appear to be interconnected with each other… it’s going to be interesting to see what happens with this area in the next couple of days :-)

Images taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and a ZWO ASI 174mm camera, I used an attached 2x Barlow lens for the close up image. AVI movies were captured with 2500 frames, then stacked in the ZWO software and processed in PS.

~ Large grouping of Sunspots on western limb the Sun 19th July 2025 ~

7/19/2025

~ Large Sunspot Groups ~

There’s a large grouping of sunspots on the western limb of the Sun that should put on quite a show for us over the next couple of day in a (Ha) solar telescope as each one of them rotate around the edge of the Sun.

(Ha) Image was taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and the white light images were taken with a Seestar S50 with the attached solar filter.

~ Large Prominence on north eastern limb of Sun 12th July 2025 ~

7/12/2025

We had a lovely fine day today for solar viewing and what a delight to see this very delicate large prominence on the north eastern limb of the Sun.

I watched it for quite some time hoping to see if it would detach or reconnect, to my surprise it reconnected and became a Hedgerow prominence...how exciting was that!

With the monochrome image you can see the prominence just before the plasma connects and 15 minutes later the colour image shows its now reconnected back to the Sun.

Images were taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope with an attached Canon 700D camera, 20 images were captured for each set of images, one set for the solar disc and one set for the faint prominence, then stacked in RegiStax6 and combined in PS.

~ Huge Prominence on the western limb of Sun 3rd July 2025 ~

7/3/2025

What a surprise to see this huge prominence of the western limb of the Sun today with delicate sprays of plasma being ejected away from the solar surface… it was a beauty!

Images were taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and Canon 700D camera with 2x Barlow lens attached. Two sets of images were taken with different exposure times then stacked in RegiStax6 and combined in PS.

The monochrome image is not a composite image it was just processed in PS.

~ (Ha) Sun with filaments, sunspots & prominences 26th June 2025 ~

6/26/2025

The (Ha) Sun with filaments
Sunspots AR 4117 to AR 4120 & active prominence on western limb
26th June 2025

There are some nice active features on the solar surface today in (Ha) with quite a few long dark filaments, those smaller sunspots at this stage are not very active but that little prominence on the western limb is firing away :-)

(Ha) image taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and attached Canon 700D camera, two sets of images were obtained with different exposures.

The exposure times I used were 1/320th second with ISO 200 for the disc and 1/15th second exposure time with ISO200 for the faint filaments. 25 images were captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

The white light images were captured with the little Seestar S50 telescope and the attached solar filter, 20 images were captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

~ Huge solar prominence ejects on north western limb of the Sun ~

6/14/2025

~ Huge Prominence on Sun ~
14th June 2025

I got such a wonderful surprise today when I set up my Lunt (Ha) solar telescope to have a look at the Sun…Wow, right there before my eyes was a stunning prominence firing away on the north western limb of the Sun.

Earlier in the day I had taken some white light images with the little Seestar telescope with the attached solar filter.

The (Ha) images were taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera, 20 images each were captured then stacked in Registax6 and processed in PS.

This is a composite image, as you need two different timed exposures to capture the disc of the Sun and the faint prominence.

To find out what the daily Sun is doing everyday please go to the National Solar Observatory website at:
https://gong2.nso.edu/products/tableView/table.php?configFile=configs/hAlpha.cfg

Credit: NSO GONG H-Alpha data

~ The Sun our awesome Star at Helensvale Library 16th May 2025 ~

5/17/2025

Presented by Noeleen Lowndes from the Southern Astronomical Society
https://www.sas.org.au
https://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/libraries/Home

What a lovely morning I had with all the people from the Savvy Seniors group at the Helensvale Library here on the Gold Coast.

I was invited again to give a presentation on astronomy and this time because of solar activity on the Sun during this year of solar maximum; I chose to talk about our awesome Sun.

These presentations are always a lot of fun because I can show and talk about all my solar images, and then enlighten people on how important this celestial object is for life on our planet Earth.

A great day was had by all, Noeleen :-)

~ The Sun: Our Spectacular Star at the Runaway Bay Library ~

8/15/2024

~ The Sun: Our Spectacular Star at Runaway Bay Library ~

I had a wonderful time at the Runaway Bay Library presenting one of my lectures on our amazing star the Sun. This topic is very close to my heart as I’m an avid solar observer and I was able to share all my solar experiences with everyone who came along to the presentation.

These included showing all my images of the Sun, solar eclipses and beautiful aurora along with rare pictures of the two transits of Venus.

Everybody learnt how dynamic the Sun really is and how safely they can observe solar events themselves with the right equipment.

A great time was had by all and thanks you again to the librarians from the Runaway Bay Library who provided a safe and happy place for the event.

Please find some photos below from the evening, happy and safe solar observing, Noeleen Lowndes :-D