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I just went outside, put on my eclipse sunglasses and looked with the naked eye at the big sunspot. Here is SDO image https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/browse/2024/08/07/20240807_170000_512_HMIIC.jpg:
That is one big sun spot! I think we’re now past the active part of the sun’s cycle and it’s supposed to be gradually calming down. That seems to be taking a while.
I was lazy and stayed at my home observatory last nite. Good skies for sure, so I hope Josef and Duane enjoyed observing at Root River. I have a new mount and scope and was educating myself on how to operate them. The mount is the HEQ5 Pro and the scope is the Quattro 150P, all Sky Watcher hardware. Spent $2000+ of my savings, but hey I’m not getting younger and I really love the potential to do better astrophotography in my old age.
Ooooo…. What scope and mount did you get? Do tell!
I’m thinking the same thing… I want the rig I want and it’s taking forever to get it; but eventually I’ll get there. I keep seeing cheaper compromising equipment for less and I keep ignoring it, but it’s so tempting.
Equipment I need to get to finish my setup: Astro-Camera (preferably the ASI2600mm Pro), Filter wheel (ASI EFW 7 x 36mm II), I may need the off-axis guider but I’m going to try with a guide scope first, a Dew shield and a Dew strap. All of that adds up.
There’s a nearly new ASI1600mm with a 1.25″ x 5 filter wheel for $700. I could buy that right now… but I really want the 2600 for so many reasons.
Also, Joseph spotted this… Corpuscular rays shooting upward!
Terrific Milky Way shot Duane! Nice corpuscular rays. Glad you two had fun at Root River.
I’ve been following solar cycle 25 closely on unmanned spaceflight. I don’t think the cycle has peaked as yet, at least based on sunspot numbers. Check out this link: https://spaceweather.com/images2024/02aug24/sunspotnumber2.jpgBeautiful images of the northwest horizon with crepuscular rays! I added one of them with the crescent Moon to the article about Root River Park.
Great info. I always thought it was an 11 year cycle but that must be short of what’s happening now.
Josef, thanks for the spell check. I’ve been saying it wrong for years. 😮
And thanks for turning out the light.
Check this out. I got a Cricut for my daughter and I decided to print out a tribute to Dean for my scope. Just added this today:
I used reflective vinyl, so in the day it looks red but with light it reflects (especially with red light) for a truly glorious message. 🙂
The Gamehaven Summer Camp outing was well attended by scouts and staff, the latter very accommodating to RAC members. Lights were off and the camp director’s plan for the activity was just right. RAC members were given a Gamehaven Summer Camp 2024 patch at the end. The patch appears in the attached figure, a dark sky meter recording below (the only thing that went right for me that night).
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Good news from Gameheaven. At the same time, we (Jeff, Mike Q and I) were able to observe round Venus low over the western horizon from Watson from about 8:40 to 9pm. In binoculars, Dobson and with the naked eye.
About 10 visitors came later. Also two astronomy and physics students, I think from MN State University Moorhead, Emily is from Rochester, her friend is not. Perhaps they could give us a talk on their astronomical research sometime in future. There was a bit of a haze across the sky, we couldn’t see the Milky Way. That’s consistent with the lower limit magnitude in Gameheaven that you published.
I just went outside, put on my eclipse sunglasses and looked with the naked eye and checked a big sunspot. It rotated and one dot of the big sun spot it is still visible. Here is SDO image made smaller so it looks almost like by naked eye
Thanks for the news from Gameheaven and the sun pic.
I went out last night to image T Cor Bor, and I took a shot of the Milky Way while I had the setup aligned. When I want to get out from under the bright part of the Rochester Dome I head to 23 St. NE. It’s little dead-end road off of county rd 11. The sky is faded to the East and straight south isn’t great either. But north and west is pretty good. Last night was particularly good.
Also, saw the longest meteor last night. It wasn’t great in any other way other than it traveled at a steady pace across half the sky straight down the Milky Way from somewhere in Cygnus nearly to Perseus. If there way somebody with me I could have called out, pointed and they would still have time to look at spot it. Never saw a meteor travel that far before. I have no idea how it cut through the atmosphere at that angle, but somehow it did.
Tonight we may be treated to both Perseid meteors and a geomagnetic storm with aurora. I say “may” because both are a half day or so past peak.
I had just stepped outside and through my eclipsed sunglasses saw for the first time in my life with my naked eyes two sunspots on the Sun. The sunspot on the bottom right is 3780 and on the top left is 3784. Each sunspot could be six times bigger than Earth. SDO image is made smaller so it looks almost like by naked eye.
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