Bin scanned the Sun through thin cloud in the morning and noted
that the sunspot had rotated.
I bin scanned Venus at 18:35 and it suggested an 80% phase.
I went to the Isle of Man astronomical society meeting. It is quite
like my local Wiltshire one, except that they have their own premises and
observatory with a 16" Meade. We managed to see Saturn through some thin
cloud. The rings and some surface markings were clear but the Cassini Division
was difficult under the conditions, which limited the magnification to
100x. We also had a good look at Tycho and Stickard on the nearby Moon.
As it cleared later, we did an outside tour of the constellations, while
other groups looked through the Meade. Outside, I was rather cold, as I put
my binoculars to good use, showing the Moon (with Tycho's rays dominating
the landscape), Saturn, the Orion Great Nebula (M42), Pleaides and Hyades,
Melotte 20 and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), which was past its best but still
visible. A good evening was had by all and I was even interviewed by local
radio, which I have a good face for.
Mar 2nd
Did a morning solar bin scan before it clouded over and saw that the
sunspot had rotated and faded.
Mar 3rd
I did a hydrogen alpha shoot, using both cameras, at 10:00 under less
than perfect conditions. The Sun looked very quiet and the sunspot that
was visible in white light was simply not visible. I could see one prominence
visually but the 10 megapixel camera picked up 2 more that I hadn't noticed.
I managed a little bit more detail with a close-up and 3 megapixel
camera.
A bin scan of the Sun showed that the sunspot had moved again.
At 18:00 I did a dusk shoot of Venus, taking shots at 128x and 256x
magnification, the latter with 10 megapixels:
The penumbral shadow made almost no difference to the partial stages
of the lunar eclipse but by 22:20 the umbral shadow was well advanced:
At 22:50 the Moon was almost in eclipse:
At 23:00 I snapped the Moon then took a wide field shot of Leo with
Saturn and the eclipsed Moon:
I also took some more constellation shots. The Plough:
Gemini:
Auriga:
At 23:45, I took another photograph to follow the eclipse:
The final action of the day was 10 minutes later when I snapped Cassiopeia
and Perseus.
Mar 4th
At 00:20 I noticed that the umbral phase of totality had finished but
my Maksutov had dewed up.
I brought the Startravel 80 into action at 00:40 and I was very pleasantly
surprised at the results, as previous attempts hadn't been successful:
20 minutes later, the umbral shadow had receded further but the conditions
had started to deteriorate:
10 minutes later (01:10) the conditions had got bad enough that not
even Saturn and Sirius were visible but I was still able to capture the
umbral shadow:
Another 10 minutes later, the umbral shadow was still clinging on:
At 01:30, there was a hint that there was some penumbral shadow but
the umbral phase was certainly over, so I called it "a night":
... except that Saturn had become visible again. I could make the rings
out visually but photographically, it just showed the strange shape that
Galileo would have seen.
Month Remainder
I managed a couple of glances at the Sun from my sickbed on 10th and
18th of March but couldn't see any sunspots. Once I was walking, I tried
on March 31st but didn't see any sunspots either.
