Sun Baked Observatory & the New Sunspot

As seen above, power processing at Sun Baked Observatory has cube extracted a dice with the actual newest large massive sunspot. The dark cooler sunspot should be visible over the next several days with special equipment.

Sun Baked Observatory and a New Sunspot

January 20, 2023

Recently the Sun has ramped up activity considerably and a new giant sunspot was discovered. A cubic slice was made into the surface of the Sun and the darker sunspot was isolated for analysis. For current solar work, Sun Baked Observatory is using a 100X amped very large 600-inch diameter telescope with a special optical solar filter. Solar granulation is "still" captured with special cameras. Sun Baked Observatory is getting an upgrade with filters and telescopes.

Sucker Clouds at Sun Baked Observatory

Sucker Clouds at Sun Baked Observatory

When the temperatures rose to over 90-degrees F. in the shade (averaging 120-degrees in direct sunlight), water vapor evaporated and the sun made an appearance in the morning of Thursday, June 2, 2022 - rain momentarily stopped, then sucker holes in the clouds began to appear. How long this will last in unclear as the weather reports rain for the rest of the day.

Parts are slated for ordering to increase the resolution and capacity of Sun Baked Observatory. Improvements are being made to the mounting, guiding, and tracking system. Solar prominences along the sun's limb are being tuned to spectral wavelengths and numerous tests are being performed.

Sun Baked Observatory Shroud

Sun Baked Observatory Shroud for Successful Solar Imaging

Imaging the sun with a mobile phone camera function is possible, however the touchscreen can be very problematic. For example, iPhone has a highly reflective screen that reflects so many images in bright sunlight, the photo image on the screen becomes completely lost in the reflective glare.

One simple solution is to make a hood of black material, with plenty of air circulation ventilation. An anti-reflective screen cover may also help. As a third option, go to settings and change the phone screen brightness to maximum.

Sun Baked Observatory Directory

Sun Baked Observatory Directory
and sun observatories leading up to Sun Baked Observatory

Trials & Tribulations Acuter Maksy 60 at Sun Baked Observatory
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/05/trials-tribulations-acuter-maksy-60-at.html

Sun Baked Observatory Report
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/05/sun-baked-observatory-report.html

Sun Baked Observatory Explores Venus Atmosphere During Solar Transit
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/05/sun-baked-observatory-explores-venus.html

History of Solar Telescopes
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/05/history-of-solar-telescopes.html

SunBaked Observatory
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/05/sun-baked-observatory.html

Acuter Maksy 60 Sun Observatory
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/05/acuter-maksy-60-sun-observatory.html

Sun Telescope
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/05/sun-telescope.html

New Solar Observatory with the Celestron Nexstar 6-inch SE
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/04/new-solar-observatory-with-celestron.html

Log - Solar Telescope
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/05/log-wednesday-may-18-2022.html

Acuter Optics Telescope Arrival - Solar Filter
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/05/acuter-optics-telescope-arrival.html

Solar Eclipse June 21 2020 Taiwan
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2020/06/images-will-appear-here.html

Venus Transit
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2020/06/my-observatory.html

High Resolution Solar Observatory
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/04/log-update-celestron-nexstar-6se.html

New Solar Observatory with the Celestron Nexstar 6-inch SE
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/04/new-solar-observatory-with-celestron.html

Log Update Celestron Nexstar 6SE Thursday April 21 2022
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/04/log-update-celestron-nexstar-6se.html

Celestron Nexstar 6SE Log Thursday April 7 2022 - Solar Observatory
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/04/celestron-nexstar-6se-log-thursday.html

Astro Log for Monday April 11 2022
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/04/astro-log-for-monday-april-11-2022.html

Monster Astro Projects - Observing the Sun
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2021/11/monster-astro-projects.html

My Observatory Summary

Taiwan Skyscraper Rooftop Observatory - Venus Transit Across the Sun
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2020/06/my-observatory.html

StarryNight Solar Eclipse
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2020/06/starrynight-solar-eclipse.html

Solar Observatory Upgrade
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/05/log-friday-may-6-2022.htm
https://otisastro.blogspot.com/2022/05/acuter-maksy-60-sun-observatory.html

Trials & Tribulations Acuter Maksy 60 at Sun Baked Observatory

Above: Attempting high magnification at the Sun's limb produced this unusual appearance - the system needs additional tuning to clearly show sunspots and solar flares and edge prominences.

Exposed with the primary solar filter but no fine tuning engagement of H-Alpha filtering.

Left: at 20mm EP projection and hand holding the iPhone camera, the solar disk was overexposed and getting the iPhone to compensate was insufficient. However, overexposure has advantages and some prominence-appearing minute detail is beginning to appear at the solaredge as well as the graduations towards the photosphere.

Trials & Tribulations of the Acuter Maksy 60 at Sun Baked Observatory
The Acuter Maksy 60 is being tuned for solar work. A number of fixes are needed before this telescope will be fully up and running.

Here's a List of Numerous Anomalies Encountered on Sunday May 29 2022.

Small Stock Tripod Insufficient to Hold Weight
The small tripod mount is insufficient to hold the telescope and the weight of the iPhone.

Small Stock Tripod Cannot Reach Elevation

The small stock tripod must be rotated to a small gap opening at the top to get it to reach a higher elevation, otherwise it bumps into the mount which is very limited. It's inconvenient to stop and move the entire mount and telescope for a position that works better.

Small Stock Tripod Insufficient to Make Fine Motions
The small tripod mount is incapable of making the fine motions needed for adjustments to image positioning

Small Tripod does not fit the Observatory Platform

The small tripod did not fully fit the observatory platform

Stock Phone Mount Failure
The stock iPhone mount failed - mount number one with the stock bands was not fully adjustable and the phone camera would not stay over the eyepiece at the proper position

Phone Mount 2 Failed
The 2nd iPhone mount failed - it pressed on the side of the iPhone against the function buttons and locked p the phone

Phone Mount 3 Failed
The 3rd iPhone mount failed, the lock holding the phone was not able to have fine tuning.

Phone Mount 4 Failed
The 4th phone mount failed, it was too heavy.

Sun Blocked by Roof
Just as the project was getting started, the sun moved into a position blocked by the roof.

Clouds & Haze Obliterates Features
The sun features were relatively void due to viewing the sun through the clouds and haze.

iPhone Touchscreen Failure
The iPhone continued to fail as any touch to the screen activated some unwanted feature.

iPhone Screen Not Visible
The iPhone screen was invisible in the bright sun - a shield was fabricated but it too had too many reflections to see anything.

Two iPhones both Fail
Two different iPhones both had the same problems.

iPhone Goes into Undesired Modes

Just setting on the table, the iPhone goes into undesired modes not conducive to astro imaging. Anything near the screen or touching it randomly is a problem.

Observatory Platform Needs Moving
The observatory platform needs to be completed in construction and moved to an ideal location.

Sun Baked Observatory Report

Sun Baked Observatory Report
The Sun is ramping up activity according to NASA's announcement of X-class solar flares, and observers who have seen large sunspot groups with the unaided eye. Online services have issued multiple aurora alerts even for mid-latitudes.

According to Sky & Telescope, after years of quiescence — the Sun was more often spotless than not in 2018, 2019, and 2020 — the change of pace is exciting solar observers. The Sun goes through 11-year cycles of magnetically instigated activity, which include sunspots, flares, and massive eruptions. While such activity last peaked around 2012 through 2014, that maximum was meager at best. In fact, it marked one of the quietest cycles in 100 years. Now, the uptick in activity seems to mark a change in the Sun’s behavior.

The consensus model from Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel (red line) slightly underpredicts the Sun's current activity (sunspot numbers shown in black). But there's wiggle room in that prediction: give or take six months for the cycle's start and give or take 10 sunspots for the daily sunspot number. With an slightly earlier start and higher activity, the panel's forecast is still spot on. Space Weather Prediction Center

Sun Baked Observatory Explores Venus Atmosphere During Solar Transit

 

Sun Baked Observatory Explores Venus Atmosphere During Solar Transit
We are constantly developing new ways to process and extract data from raw solar imaging. Much of these efforts are experimental and subjective. This time we've enhanced the atmosphere thickness surrounding Venus during a solar transit when Venus was passing in front of the Sun, and looked for Venusian atmospheric detail across the planet.

Topmost Image: This is the final step 4 in the processing cycle. Here we see Venus moving across the face of the sun, approaching the solar limb. The Sun and Venus final result show the appearance of detail in the atmosphere of the planet and a surrounding atmosphere of varying thickness outwards from Venus. The color shows the differentials.

Immediately Above: Step 2 in image processing will determine if any data is present in the raw image as related to the planet and the surrounding region of atmosphere, and if it warrants continued processing.

Left: This is step 3 in the process after

step 2 determines the presence of imagery on Venus and adjacent features, suggesting a surrounding band of thick atmosphere that sunlight is filtering through. The changing solar plane also shows detail closer to the Sun's limb as it receives color encoding to specify the intensity levels of objects discerned. This is also a first level step in reducing the luminosity differential between the Sun and Venus.

At left: Step one in the solar-venus process is to acquire a raw image of Venus traveling across the face of the extremely bright sun. At these great and vast luminosity differences, Venus looks like a black featureless disk, i.e. until processing can view the underlying sheath of light differentials. This image is first processed to reduce the effects of Venus' motion and increase the clarity and sharpness of underlying features.

Sun Baked Observatory

The indoor telescope at Sun Baked Observatory currently looks through a pane of optical window glass to protect against harmful solar UV radiation in the Subtropical Zone. Above, a solar tuning test for image scale and other parameters.

Sun Baked Observatory
The first solar telescope, a 60mm Maksutov-Cassegrain Acuter Catadioptric with a Celestron computer driven alt-azimuth mounting (and other test platforms), is up and running at the new Sun Baked Observatory.

The solar filter and solar finderscope accessory arrived and the system is in place and being tuned. The  new Sun Baked Observatory, equipped with a solar-tuned Acuter Maksy 60 telescope, is located in the dangerous particle-hot Subtropical Zone with exceptional seeing conditions. There is no ozone layer in the upper atmosphere which allows dangerous rays to penetrate - and human cellular cancerous degradation protection against harmful high intense UV is important. For this reason, the observatory is currently being run protectively from indoors, looking through optical window glass. Window glass absorbs UV while passing IR. H-

Alpha test filters are available for experimentation and several cameras and camera mounts are also ready for action. Of course, soon after buying the telescope and accessories, the weather turned to rain. In the future, more of the telescope may be operated by remote to limit harmful solar UV rays exposure to astronomers. 

Overall, the tests thus far are highly successful and an image scale to show the entire solar disk is possible along with increasing magnifications to zoom in on sun features. An optical zoom at 68-degree widefield - Baader Mark IV Hyperion 8mm-24mm (8,12,16,20,24) is being tested along with a camera zoom to test the clarity and resolution of results to test a technique of rapidly going from full solar disk to zooming in on sunspots and other features. This rapidity of change afforded by a zoom lens where time is not lost in changing eyepieces, will facilitate observing through holes in clouds (Sucker Holes) that can disappear in 20 minutes or less. The Sun Baked Telescope needs fast reaction time to be ready in an instant.

Baader Mark IV Hyperion Click-Stop 8mm-24mm (8,12,16,20,24)

Acuter Solar Telescope: 750mm (29.5-inch) FL, 60mm (2.4-inch) aperture

08mm - 93.75

12mm - 62.50x

16mm - 46.88x

20mm - 37.50x

24mm - 31.25x

Under prefect seeing, the maximum power per aperture inch is 50x.

2.4" x 50 = 120x. 6.25mm - 120x