Sunspot AR3664 Development 6/12 May24/05/2024
Astronomy

While I missed the actual Auroral lightshow on the night of 11th and Morning of the 12th May, I did have a number of clear days in the days leading up to it.

I was able to draw the development of Sunspot AR3664 in a series of six drawings made over 7 days

6m May 14:22 UT
7th May 10:26 UT
9, May 17:43 UT
10, May 13:37 UT
11, May 14:16 UT
12, May 11:19 UT

I was also able to image the Sun on the 11th, May

Sunspot AR3664

Session Data

  • Date:  11/5/2024
  • Time:  13:46 – 14:46 UT
  • Seeing: II. Good – Slight
  • Transparency: III. Clear with slight haze.
  • Temp: 18 C,
  • Air Pressure: 1019mb
  • Humidity: 73%
  • Dew Point: 13C
  • Wind Speed: 10mph

Scope: TMB 80 f/6  Camera: ZWO ASI 183MM Pro, No Filter. No Darks or Flats taken.

This is a stack of the best 15 frames of a 100 frame .SER file. I’ve tried various methods to process this. On one iteration I tried Bill Blanshen’s Solar Tool script. I like the idea of it, but I think with only having so few frames in a stack that the results were not to my liking, so I ended up using a 5 layer Multiscale Linear Transformation in Pixinsight followed by a curve adjustment to increase the contrast followed by a High Pass sharpen filter in Affinity Photo. It doesn’t quite have the zing I wanted, but any further processing starts to introduce artifacts.