November 2006 Observations

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Nov 1st

Bin scanned the sun under clear conditions at 10:20 GMT and didn't see any sunspots.

Nov 2nd

I did a hydrogen alpha shoot at 09:45. For once, the prominences were hard to photo but a couple of sunspots and filaments came out. I did a close-up of the prominences and active region, too:







The bin scan at 10:00 gave a different view of the sunspots:



Nov 3rd

A bin scan of the Sun revealed some rotation and shape change of the sunspots:



Nov 4th

Bin scanned the Sun at mid-day and found that the sunspot group had shrunk and rotated:


Nov 5th

Bin scanned the Sun at 09:20 GMT through thin cloud and the sunspot had faded from view.

Nov 9th

Bin scanned the Sun in a clear sky at 08:20 GMT but didn't see any sunspots, alhough limb darkening was very apparent.

The waning gibbous moon looked simply magnificent, with lots of southern craters visible and Tycho's rays still prominent.

I performed a hydrogen alpha shoot at 10:40 GMT (indoors as I had a cold). I picked up a new sunspot, which I'd missed earlier in the bin scan but it showed well. There seemed to be little or no prominence activity.



I did another hydrogen alpha shoot at 15:30 GMT. Unfortunately, the Sun wa slow down and I didn't manage a shot of the whole disc but I did manage a couple of close-ups:



I went for a bin scan at 21:15 GMT but it was too hazy to see Comet Swan. The Moon looked good, with lots of craters in the south but it hadn;t changed a lot since morning. The Hyades, Pleiades, Albireo, Delta and Epsilon Lyrae were visible but it was disappointing, given the clarity earlier in the day.

Nov 10th

Although the conditions were hazy, I managed to see the sunspot I had seen in hydrogen alpha light the day before on a bin scan:



Nov 11th


A solar bin scan at 08:50 revealed that the sunspot had grown considerably in apparent size, although it hadn't rotated much from the previous day:



Nov 12th

It would be fair to descrive the conditions of my morning bin scan as marginal but I managed to see the sunspot from the day before. However, any smaller sunspots that may have emerged would have been lost:



Nov 13th

Despite an unpromising start, the sky cleared enough to track the progress of the sunspot. I couldn't remember a single one as large as it!



The Moon, just past last quarter, was high in the west and looked nice, with lots of southern craters and Copernicus still showing rays.

Nov 17th

After a really wet few days, the sky cleared enough to be able to recover the sunspot, then it clouded right over agaon and started raining:



Although cloud covered most of the sky at any one time at 23:00, it was moving, so I was able to see the Pleiades and Hyades clearly durung a bin scan. In fact, the Pleaides looked quite spectacular. I was also able to see the Orion Great Nebula (M42) clearly, despite its low elevation. I could also split Mizar and Alcor.

Nov 18th

It was just past midnight when I had another look outside. The eastern horizon had cleared a bit and I could see Saturn. I saw a bright meteor streak through the bowl of the Plough at 00:05 GMT. At first I thought it was a sppradic meteor but a later check showed it may well have been a Leonid. It was about magnitude -2. There was no further action..

Dawn was breaking at 06:20 but most of the constellation outlines were clearly visible. I spent a while staring at Leo but didn't see any meteors. I was able to see Saturn's rings through my bins and able to make out the main stars of the Beehive (M44). In the east, the waning crescent Moon showed a few craters while Spica was about 2 degrees above it.

A bin scan of the Sun showed that the sunspot had roated and changed shape again:



I managed to do a hydrogen alpha photo shoot at 14:30 GMT. There was a lot more activity on the Sun, with lots of prominences. I took a whole disc shot plus some close-ups:















At 23:00 I tried out the focal reducer on the Mak to give nearly 2 degrees field of view. One shot of the Pleiades came out of 6 attempts:



It was too hazy near the horizon to see the Beehive (M44). While trying to find it, I fluked Iota Cancri but the photo was too blurry. The Orion Great Nebula (M42) looked great but didn't photograph. I did catch some of Melotte 20:



I finished by having a look around the Milky Way around Cygnus.

At no time did I see a single Leonid and was out for nearly an hour.

Nov 19th

I woke up (accidentally!) at 04:15 and watched for Leonids from 04:30 to 05:00. I resisted the temptation to do a bon scan or use a telescope to check out the Beehive. The limiting magnitude was approaching 5 around Leo.

The first meteor was about mag 2 and went through Ursa Major, followed by a third magnitude one a bit later. The third was a bright meteor around magnitude 0 through northern Leo and the fourth about magnitude 2 through Leo Minor. I saw 2 further faint ones in Gemini and Ursa Major. The brightest meteor had a trail of about 10-12 degrees but the others were quite short. Although the storm rates didn't materialise, the rate of one per 5 minutes was about the same as the Perseids. What I found surprising was that the radiant appeared to be somewhat north of the sickle and there were no faint southbound meteors.

A morning solar bin scan showed that the sunspot  was about to rotate from view:



Nov 23rd

I endured 3 days of white-out in Holland, although England was no different. I bin scanned the Sun at 09:45 GMT (back in England) and couldn't see any sunspots.

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