Hello everyone,
Time, weather, work and family have been making time at the
eyepiece very scarce of late. Very slim
pickings so far this year. The forecast
for the next month isn’t too crash hot either.
But, that’s astronomy for you…
I am very glad to have picked up a Daystar Quark solar
filter now. It allows me to indulge a
little in astro sketching while the Moon and DSO’s are off limits. Now it takes me some 5min to set up my solar
kit, half hour the whole sketch process, and pack up in another 5min, and all
done. Yesterday and today I had the
opportunity to do a sketch each day.
I am in constant awe at the variety and detail offered by
prominences. These can be rampaging
monsters, through to gossamer soft ghostly extensions. And always intricate and complex in detailed
structures. All powered by screaming hot
gases channelled through enormous magnetic fields.
The structures I was able to sketch these two days are
wonderfully varied. On the 11th there
were two ‘eruptive’ prominences, one twisted (most likely an arch or broken
arch seen close to sagittally) and the other described as ‘tree’ (a type of
fork prom.) Today, the hedgerow prom had
extraordinary surging bulges of plasma, whisper thin streamers, and pillars
that are being torn apart by terrifyingly powerful magnetic fields. And by way of contrast, a couple of diminutive
inclined prom’s, and a small cluster of sunspots.
Object: Solar prominences
Telescope: ED80 f/7.5
Gear: Daystar Quark,
Prominence model, 25mm Pl, 101X
Dates: 11th
& 12th August, 2015
Location: Sydney,
Australia
Media: Soft pastel
& charcoal on A5 size black paper.
