Here are my Solar sunspot counts for September. Not as many days as I did in August, but my first month using the same instrument setup and where I feel I have settled on a more consistent method in my observing workflow. A full 30 day solar cycle at 60 Solar Hours a sec rate The following are the drawings made at the eyepiece and are displayed with the Zenith up with the second…

My 3D printed solar filter is complete. Designed in Fusion 360 and printed in PLA on a Flashforge Adventurer 4 I decided to make it in two parts, so the Baader film is clamped between the inner L ring and the outer frame that slides over the dew shield on the scope. Rather than just relying on the clamping effect of the two halves to hold the baader film, I also applied a thin…

I’ve had a bit of an upgrade on the Solar scope front. Despite the 150mm aperture the 80mm glass solar filter was stopping the scope to the point, where any magnification above 50X turned the view to a blurry mush. With my current selection eyepieces, I was only able to use some pretty horrible – and very old- Meade 4000 series Plossls in the 26mm to 40mm range. The most obvious way to see…

The only good thing to come out of this continuous bout of hot weather and a declared drought is that apparently it has been clear every night for over a week now. While that is fine for my fellow deep sky imager friends, it hasn’t been of any use to me as my own observatory has been decommissioned pending a possible rebuild next year. The only astronomy I’m doing at the moment is variable…

With all the really nice weather we have been having lately, this was a good opportunity to get out with the scope and do a little solar observing and drawing. Rather than just concentrate on one single highly detailed drawing, I wanted to try doing a simple sketch every day, for as many days as the weather would allow. I did try this a few years back and quite enjoyed the experience, so if…