Sunspots and Flares (+eventual Prominences)

 

To main H-Alpha solar astromovie's page      To main Astromovies and instructions page

Dates
Always wait full download for GIF (first pass is very slow)
In general click on images for full size AVI !
20150316
   

AR2297 is crakling with M flares !

 

 

M1 flare (11:01 UT) 30Fps

 

Coming asap : Details here

20150312

AR2297 is crakling with M flares !

 

 

M2 flare (~10h UT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

M4 flare (~11h UT)

 

Details here

20150308

How the Sun grows a tulip during sunspot 2297 activiy :)

As shown at left, GIF animation may not have top resolution,
it is suggested to see or download the Astromovie using one of those links : IPhone, IPod, WMV, XVID, MOV

For explanation & Table of 4 frames here (click on table for full size)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Left : just a bonus video of the same day (14:41 UT) showing a C2 flare ... here for XVID download

20141027

20140310

 

I was just taking the first light of my just bought Watec 902H ultimate on the Sun in H-alpha when (1528UT) the M1 flare occured !
Thats pure luck !
PerlVixen Fluorite 100/900 + SM90-BF30 Coronado filter + Antares 1.6x barlow.

Processing : the 14200 frames of the 9GB AVI have been saved as 100 segments of 142 frames with Virtualdub. Then RegiStax6 has batch processed them giving one PNG by AVI. RegiStax6 registration of those 142 images to give the final animation.
  13:00 UT ... Some activity ... C flares.
When you look at the whole Sun, a C flare is just a scratch :)
PerlVixen 100/900 fluorite, Coronado SM90 BF30 , Antares 1.6 barlow, SBIG STL11000M. RegiStax6
  Fluo-SM90 Coronado-B2x-VestaPro-20090509-1722UT-HA-Best
20070605

Sunspot 960. Around 16:15 UT. Acceleration 30x.

5 fps capture (cause passing light clouds capture in full auto mode).

ToucamPro webcam behind Fluorite 100/900 equipped with 90mm H-Alpha Coronado filter
mounted on LX200 12".

As always Astrosnap Pro capture and autoguiding on the sunspot !

20070602

Sunspot 960

10fps capture. Acceleration.

ToucamPro webcam behind Fluorite 100/900 equipped with 90mm H-Alpha Coronado filter
mounted on LX200 12".

20070428

Sunspot 953. 10fps. Accelerated 75x.

Astromovie : Activity in and around the sunspot...

ToucamPro webcam behind Fluorite 100/900 equipped with 90mm H-Alpha Coronado filter

This picture : Mosaic of 5 images made with a 2x Televue Barlow

 

NotDivx-full

Gif-full

NotDivxCenter

Gif-center

20070427

Sunspot 953. 20fps. Accelerated 75x.

ToucamPro webcam behind ETX90 equipped with 90mm H-Alpha Coronado filter

20050803

Sunspot 792 with a filament acting like a thief :)

(X2 barlow)

20050620

Sunspot 779 followed at high resolution.
20050619

Sunspot 779 followed at high resolution. Some blurred images have been removed.

20050614

Sunspot 775 followed at high resolution. Some images have been removed.
20050613


Sunspot 775 followed at high resolution
for 7 hours (1206-1906UT) !! Some images darkened by passing clouds have been removed. !!! ATTENTION 20Mo !!!  
20050609


Solar waves !

20050506
~16TU


Arches post flare above,
click on image for full size !


Flare Maximum above,
click here for lighter version in GIF

After looking at those time selected shows , don't miss the full length AVI (1H40), explanations,  related graphs and files, how to and story...
Just click  here !

20050612

20050501

20050402

20050319

20050207

20050207 

20050127

20050116

20050116b

20050115

20050115b need special Codec !
It is not Divx but HUFFYUV
see instruction section or french Notes


Parameters and Explanations

AVI

Except otherwise posted, all movies are captured at St Rémy lès Chevreuse, France
In general click on images for full size !

Related still images

20150312

1- max of M2 flare & 2- max of M4 flare

Fluorite 102/900 refractor, JMI electrical focuser, SM90 & T90 BF30, 1.6x Antares barlow, ASI120MM

Rather clear sky (little coutrails)

 

Recordings started at 12:01:48 UT and were stopped at 12:26:56.

Each individual 30s 16b AVI taken with Firecapture was registered with AS!2, keeping 80%. Resulting images (not all the same size) were processed with Wx individually. A first manual alignment was done in RegiStax5 and save to a cropped movie. VirtualDub was then used to crop the black stripes. RegiStax5 was used again using "align with processed" a few times. The resulting AVI was loaded in Virtualdub to change framerate from 300 to 30. "WonderFox Video to GIF Converter" was used to make the GIF file.

20150308

Fluorite 102/900 refractor, JMI electrical focuser, SM90 & T90 BF30, 1.6x Antares barlow, ASI120MM

Because of clouds it was not easy : 75 frames

Recordings started at 12:57:30 UT and were stopped at 16:17:11.

Each individual 16b AVI taken with Firecapture was registered with AS!2, keeping 95%. Resulting images (not all the same size) were converted to 8b with Irfanview. A first manual alignment was done in RegiStax5 and save to a cropped movie. VirtualDub was then used to delete bad frames and crop the black stripes. RegiStax5 was used again using "align with processed" a few times. The resulting AVI was loaded in Virtualdub to change framerate from 300 to 24. "WonderFox Video to GIF Converter" was used to make the GIF file.

20070605

A lot of activity on this sunspot (960) !!

20070602
 
20070427

Sunspot 953... Looking rather quiet for the time being.

See a small B flare on the right picture despite thicker clouds ...

20050612

My most exciting solar flare

On the 2005/05/06 early afternoon, the weather got rather nice with just few sparsed clouds. I begun watching the Sun in HAlpha at about 12UT. I used the same equipment  (Perl-Vixen Fluo 102/900 in // on LX200-12", Coronado SM/TM90, VestaPro N&B RAW, 2x Barlow) as usually. The seeing was rather good . It was obvious tha the famous 756 sunspot was decaying and that the 758 one was very active ! I started soon making pictures and from that time to sunset was glued to my chair ... see the one just on the right and click on it for a larger version. 
I then started making AVIs all around in order to prepare a future mosaic (asap). The GOES X-ray flux page  with 1min resolution was in permanence visible on a the screen of another PC next by. Well it was  rather flat and I went for a quick lunch  and an hour walk... I came back at 16UT and rushed the the monitor just to see on this GOES graph that a C1-flare had started a few min ago ! Well to bad I thought :( But I saw that the curve was not falling down sharply and this fact gave me hope at least for a nice show yet and maybe a new surge. A couple of min later, recording was on ! The seeing condition at this late hour were far from good. You can see a little "live" movie if you click here in a little movie going up to the limb, the motors of the mount beeing stopped and the Sun then drifting towards West. Indeed the slope went slowly up again at a steady rate... I was thinking : will it reach the M class ? Finally no, it went up to C9 only ! But it was rather unusual as the up and later down slopes were not steep. This gave a remarquable long lasting show ! You can see it all on the whole Sun (Credit GOES) with high resolution here and also see the global orientation on their still image if you click here. Also Thierry Legault made a mouthwatering single image with the full size SBIG CCD at 17:05 UT, time of the maximum, click here to see it !
On the 2 astromovies shown above and also in this one showing the whole sequence, all the bad frames resulting from passing clouds and resulting obscurity or very bad seeing have been removed. Complete movies with very precise timing of each image (and all the missing bad frames) are available.

This astromovie is dedicated
to the people who have helped improving the webcams (inventing webcam with astronymy power, B&W CCD, RAW mode...), to Axel Canicio for his precious AstrosnapPro software, to Cor for his great registering software Registax3 with which export of a non jerking AVI , to the authors of VirtualDub and Aviedit and finally to Fabrice and all the friends who have helped me for my HAlpha setup.
Capture details :
Camera at 10fps auto mode to accept slight changing nebulosity, AstrosnapPro in 100 frames integration mode - the secret for killing bad seeing, flux mode, LRVB monochrome, live deconvolution 100, internal guiding correlation value 10 on rather stable but changing dots ! , one image added to AVI every 5sec, HUFFyuv lossless compression.

HAlpha Sun
with surprise !!

Perl-Vixen Fluo 102/900, Coronado SM/TM90, VestaPro N&B RAW, Date/hour : 2005/05/01 from 16:05:42 at 0.1fps. Capture at 10fps with AstrosnapPro. Images integrated /convoluted continuously in APro into a 10 frame buffer. 1 frame automatically added to AVI every cycle. Final processing : Virtualdub, Colorisation with aviedit. Compressed with divx  5.2.1. at 60fps...

The plane  seems to be a Cessna 75 or Citation X executive Jet !
Thanks for the help !

Halpha
TMax opening changed

Effects of opening/closing the TuneMax adaptor on Coronado filters. When open the aspect is almost like in white light (but see small ovals around penombra). When closed the H-Alpha world appears in its splendor ! 20050319-12:36-12:47UT. click on image at right for a full size one. Also see here how a composite image does not really reflects reality when taken on a few min range !

Sun flares H-alpha

20040727a

20050115 a & b

20050116b

20040727a  Perl-Vixen Fluo 102/900, Coronado SM/TM90, VestaPro N&B RAW, Date/hour : 2004/07/24 12:15:25.677, Original compressed to Divx. AVI 36.

20050115 a & b  Perl-Vixen Fluo 102/900, Meade Apo Barlow 2x, Coronado SM/TM90, VestaPro N&B RAW, Date/hour : 2005/01/15 141421-143023UT-2fpm. Capture at 5fps in camera auto mode with AstrosnapPro. Images integrated /convoluted continuously in APro into a 100 frame buffer. 1 frame automatically added to AVI every cycle. Total 32 frames. Final processing : Contrast, gamma in Virtualdub. Colorisation with aviedit. Compressed with divx  5.2.1.

For 20050115a (sun spot 720), an X2 flare occured much later (after 23 UT, during the night in France) as seen in this SOHO/EIT195 deep UV light image.

For 20050115b (sun spot 718), as quality is not good for full screen in divx same movie proposed in Huffyuv v2.1.1 (much larger file 3.6Mo but Ok for full screen viewing. See site for downloading this famous lossless codec). This flare on sun spot 718 has also been captured by SOHO/EIT195 in deep UV light, see it here.

It it to be noted that seeing was very poor all day ... see  a 2 image animation of 720 sun spot here .
Also you can see the increase of activity on this GEOS X-ray flux (20040115).  

20050116b 1531-1543UT (37 accumulated frames). Not as spectacular but for the record. Small flare in  720. Also here a raw image to show what can be still done with slight overcasts.