Yet another Astro Weekend

Yesterday was really fun, enjoying some good food and conversation with people we rarely see any other time, because we usually only meet in the dark...

We met at the pavilion next to the Nielsen Observatory, where the shade kept us quite cool during the heat of the day. We had some digital presentations and some old club photo albums to keep us entertained. After dinner we gathered round and Len J. took a group photo.

Some of us had planned to stay for an observing session but it clouded up as dusk approached. Oh, well, you can only have so much fun in one day, right? Right!

Here's Len with his trusty camera...



Then, today several of us met at Sandy Ridge for solar viewing.


And what a day it was.

We guestimate that we had over 60 eager Solar Neophytes get their very first glimpses of the Sun today. And what a glimpse it was...

The new Lunt Solar scope had people jumping up and down.

A large prominence had lifted off the surface, then looped back around and re-attached itself. You could see the plasma moving along and through the loop. There was also a long dark surface filament in the shape of a bullwhip. 

I haven't heard that much Oohing and Aahing in a long time. The Lunt truly earned it's keep today. 




And, not to be outdone, even the white light view was pretty spectacular today.

With one HUGE Sunspot and directly east of it was a series of small spots forming a Sunspot group.

People seemed genuinely surprised to learn that each Sunspot is about the same size as our entire Earth.

But, hey, who needs telescopes when the Sun Gods are smiling upon us??

A large halo appeared around the Sun and actually lasted almost an hour. We explained how light  refracts or bends off water droplets in the clouds and ice crystals in the upper atmosphere to create these and other "bows."


Thanks to everybody who came out and attended these events and made them the successes they were.

Astronomically, John