Solar activity is diminishing in its 11-year cycle, but there have been a few nice spots recently and I have used them to try out the Society's 6-inch refractor. There was a nice single spot at the end of May and the AR-6 gave me a nice picture once I tried using a narrow-band filter with it. Then more recently there has been a nice set of three spots.
Here firstly are whole-Sun pictures taken with a 270-mm SLR lens in white light.
Top: Sunspot 12546 taken 24 May 2016
Below: Sunspots (left to right) 12567, 12565, and 12566 taken on 17 July 2016
The here are close-up pictures firstly of 12546 taken with the AR-6 refractor and an OIII filter.
And then the group of three taken in white light using my ETX125
Sadly this last is not as good as I would expect. Maybe seeing conditions were worse than they appeared to be.
Peter
The Fish Head Nebula in Cassiopeia lies next to the Heart Nebula. For the image Ha,S11 and O111 filters on a SX Trius 694 mono camera were connected to a Takahashi 106 refractor over a period of 4 and 1/2 hours last night.
The Elephant's Trunk nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within a larger ionized gas region I.C.1396 in Cepheus.In the bright moonlight narrowband filters were considered appropriate,12x600sHa,6x600sO111 and 6x600sS11 using the Hubble palette.The telescope was a Takahashi 106,camera a SX Trius 694,guided with an OAG and Lodestar, location Hatfield Woodhouse.
