August 2006 Observations

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Aug 2nd

Bin scanned the sun under clear conditions at 05:55 GMT and didn't see any sunspots. Recent reports from friends in the hydrogen alpha and calcium K world suggest that this is very much a solar minimum, with little activity reported.

Aug 3rd

 
Bin scanned the sun at 17:10 GMT under clear conditions but didn't see any sunspots.

Aug 7th

 
Bin scanned the night sky at 22:20 GMT. There was thin cloud, which was scattering moonlight, the worst conditions apart from not being able to view at all. The moon was nearly full and very low down. The main ray systems were prominent but I could still make out Clavius and Plato was prominent.
 
The binocular doubles of Mizar/Alcor, Nu and 16/17 Draconi, Epsilon and Delta Lyrae and Albeiro were visible in the poor conditions.
 
The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and M13 showed surprisingly well and M29 and M39 were visible in Cygnus, without being lost in the background Milky Way.

Aug 8th

 
Bin scanned the sun at 08:25 GMT and the disc was still clear.

Aug 10th

 
Bin scanned the sun at 07:30 GMT in clear conditions but didn't see any sunspots.
 

Aug 11th

 
Watched for Perseid meteors from 22:30 GMT for half an hour but didn't see any. There was moving cloud but enough clear patches to make it worth trying.
 

Aug 12th

 
Bin scanned the sun at 07:05 GMT and was surprised to find new sunspot activity for the first time for ages.



It was almost inevitable that I would follow up with the hydrogen alpha view and at 08:30 GMT, I noticed some prominences near the sunspot.
 
I took a close-up in addition to the full disc photo.



I checked the calcium K view and saw some cell structure and the sunspots seemed really prominent but the photos didn't come out. The sunspots didn't seem so clear in white light.
Watched Perseids from 20:35 to 20:50 GMT. A flash between a gap in the cloud happened at 20:40, then a fireball exploded towards the pole at 20:43. Two faint ones came together at 20:45 then it clouded over at 20:50.
 

Aug 13th

 
Watched again from 23:10 to 23:30 GMT but just saw 3 faint ones.
 
I did a bin scan of the eastern sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Pleiades. I picked up M34 but the cloud and moonlight made the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) difficult.
 
The moon was noticeably bright, with Tycho's rays still dominating the lunar landscape.

Bin scanned the sun in the afternoon after a cloudy morning and noted that the sunspots had rotated.



Aug 18th

Travel restrictions meant that I didn't want to risk the PST with airport baggage handling services, so instead I just dusted down my Tasco 76mm reflector to bring to India. Monsoon had prevented viewing for the first part of my stay in Hyderabad but I finally managed to see the sunspots before work:



Aug 19th

Bin scanned the sun from the customer premises and noted that the main sunspot had rotated:



Aug 25th

After several days of cloud, I finally managed to check the sun in the afternoon:



Aug 27th

The sunspots had both rotated and mutated into a clear active region:



Conditions were far from perfect when I ventured out into the Indian dusk at 14:45 GMT but at least I had a chance to do some night viewing.

The moon was low down and, although I could see some craters, Mare Crisium was the only feature that I could positively identify.

Jupiter was much better placed than from the UK and I could see 3 moons plus a hint of equatorial shading. I used the Tasco at 24x magnification for both objects. At 60x magnification, I could not get a clear focus, due to the thin cloud that blotted out most objects below 2nd magnitude.

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