Sun - now you are just showing off...

Sol – Oh, now you are just showing off…

In the way that no two people are the same in appearance, solar prominences are not the same in appearance.  And with an instrument like the Daystar Quark Prominence model, the subtle nuances can be picked up – the puffy extensions, the frayed columns, the tenuous tendrils connecting components.  All this serves to make chasing prominences a favourite of mine.

I had the opportunity to chase proms on the 21^st and 25^th.  What the Sun threw up on both days was just gorgeous.  It would be easy to lump the proms on display as just Hedgerow and anomalous proms and leave it at that.  But the truth is, the structures within these were so unique, beautiful and even had earthly elements, just to lump them with only a clinical title is just insufficient.

21^st April

“Anomalous prominences” is the title given to proms that don’t fit within the limited descriptive catalogue of prom types.  These anomalous proms can be extraordinarily beautiful, big and even have the appearance of things like hands, chimneys or trees.  Often too they are magnetically connected with other proms and features that push and pull on them.

This day there were several different prom types all close together on the solar limb.  Hedgerow proms that looked like distant bushfire smoke plumes.  Small detached proms floated over the surface.  Inclined spikes reached over to form platform proms, bridging with other features.  Pyramid proms that looked like Christmas trees.  And an anomalous prom that had the appearance of dormant deciduous tree, with skeletal naked branches reaching out and up from the single trunk.  One of these branches morphed into an extension of an inclined platform prom.

This is where the Daystar Quark comes into its own.  Being the Prominence model, it is finely tuned to allow for the softest of prom details to been noticeable.  Photographs tend to washout the softest of details.  And it is only with the constant observation that comes with my sketching that most of these details slowly show themselves.

Object:  Sol with miscellaneous proms

Scope & Gear:  ED80, 25mm Pl, Daystar Quark, 101X

Date: 21^st April, 2016

Location:  Sydney, Australia

25^th April

Today on show were several regions of proms on display around the Sun.  The one the captured my attention to sketch was a broad segment with and exquisite hedgerow display, anomalous proms and pillar proms.

The complex structures within the Hedgerow were sensational.  Tendrils of plasma reaching across, over and beneath each other.  Plumes of material puffing out into angle-breath soft faint before disappearing into space.  Even a pillar prom sneaked in between the plumes.  The anomalous prom had its own complexity in structure, resembling a pyramid prom, but more of a complex pair of inclined pillars.  The disc along the limb also showed some swirling structures too.

When I finished this segment, I re-examined the other prom areas.  These were proving to be gorgeous on their own merits too, they beckoned me to sketch them.  I noticed that the way I structured my initial sketch I had a big empty area above the segment that I saw that I could include smaller segments to depict these proms.  And in the end, the whole finished sketch resembles a smilie face! :)

Object:  Sol with various prom regions

Scope & Gear:  ED80, Hyperion Zoom @ 20mm, Daystar Quark, approx. 126X

Date:  25^th April, 2016

Location:  Sydney, Australia

Media:  Soft pastels and charcoal on A4 size black paper.