The Sun in 2024

Derby and District Astronomical Society

The Sun in 2024

The following is a solar flare observation from a Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance (SID) detector being run by DDAS member Tony Razzell. The detector is very simple, consisting of a frame aerial ~600x600mm with ~80 turns of enamelled copper wire connected via a screened coax lead to the Mic input of a laptop. The clever bit is the Spectrum Lab software (https://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/spectra1.html) running on the laptop which acts as a Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio receiver (top two images). This picks up a number of VLF stations transmitting between 19.6kHz and 24kHz. Although intended for long distance secure military communications, they provide a convenient signal which varies with the amount of ionisation present in the upper atmosphere or ionosphere (80-600km altitude). When a solar flare occurs, the hard ultraviolet (UV) and X-rays emitted travel through space and increase the ionisation on the sunlit side of the earth. This can be detected as a sharp rise or fall in the strength of a VLF station, followed by a decay back to around the previous strength as the ionisation dissipates. For stations up to several hundred km away, the change can be due to mixing of signals received by refraction in the ionosphere (the sky wave) and signals travelling directly via a ground wave. For greater distances, the sky wave dominates.

In this observation (shown in the top image), the dark blue signal at 21.75kHz from Rosnay in France (call sign HWU) shows a large drop at ~11:10 UT, recovering to around its previous level by ~12:30 UT. The effect on the signal at 24.00kHz from the Cutler station in Maine, US happens at the same time but the effect is a small increase in strength, possibly due to the path length being partially in darkness and probably no mixing effect with the ground wave due to the distance. We know that the changes were caused by a solar flare because of the sharp increase in X-ray flux from the GOES 16 satellite (bottom image), which continuously monitors the Sun. The solar flares data can be found on the Space Weather website, https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/solar-activity/solar-flares.html. Top two images credit: Tony Razzell, bottom credit: NOAA SWPC - SpaceWeatherLive.com

Pete Hill captured this image of the Sun on the 27th October 2024. The image was taken in white light using a Skywatcher 102 refractor on an HEQ5 Pro mount at solar tracking rate. A Baader continuum filter, Herschel wedge, and Image Source DMK41 mono CCD camera were used, together with a 0.5x focal reducer attached directly to the camera, enabling a whole disc view. The best 500 of 1000 frames were stacked in AutoStakkert 3. The brightness and contrast were tweaked in Registax 6, also using wavelets. The image was finished in Photoshop 6 to correct the orientation and further tweak the levels. Image Credit: Pete Hill.

This image of a 'Flight to the Sun' was taken on October 12th in the afternoon by Peter Branson. The photo is frame number 2477 from a video of 5000 frames taken with an Altair GPCAM327C camera through a TS Optics ED60 refractor on a Star Adventurer Pro mount. The video was taken of a very small region of interest centred on a group of sunspots. Peter says - "When I processed the video I noticed something strange on about a dozen frames - and in frame number 2477 the aircraft was perfectly placed!" Image Credit: Peter Branson.

Chris Callaway captured this image of the Sun in hydrogen-alpha light on the 17th August 2024 using a Coronado 90 solar telescope and ZWO 178MC camera. Image Credit: Chris Callaway.

This image of the Sun was taken in July 2024 by one of the founding members of the DDAS, Ed Spooner. Ed used a 6" refractor with a Baader filter and smartphone to capture this white light image, which shows many sunspots. Some cloud was passing in front of the Sun at the time. Image Credit: Ed Spooner.

Chris Callaway captured this image of the Sun in hydrogen-alpha light on the 28th July 2024 using a Coronado 90 solar telescope and ZWO 178MC camera. Image Credit: Chris Callaway.

This image of the Sun in hydrogen-alpha light was captured on the 19th July 2024 by Chris Callaway using a Coronado 90 solar telescope and ZWO 178MC camera. Following that a couple of monochrome crops from the same data are shown. Finally, Chris also constructed a couple of videos from the same data, which are shown after the still images. Image Credit: Chris Callaway.

Chris Callaway put together the following video of this solar prominence from 8 minutes of data taken on the 18th July 2024 using a Coronado SolarMax II 90 and a ZWO 178 MC camera.

Chris Callaway captured this image of the Sun in hydrogen-alpha light on the 18th July 2024 using a Coronado 90 solar telescope and ZWO 178MC camera. The best 150 frames out of 600 were combined to produce the image. Image Credit: Chris Callaway.

The following images of the Sun, captured by Chris Callaway on the 21st June 2024, show the difference between a white light solar filter attached to a Meade LX200 8" telescope on the left and a dedicated Coronado 90 solar telescope in H-alpha on the right. Both data sets were captured using a ZWO 178 MC camera. The best 150 out of 600 frames were used to produce the white light image, and the best 300 out of 1200 frames were used for the H-alpha image. Image Credit: Chris Callaway.

Jim Sarsgard captured this image of the Sun on the 21st June 2024 using a Skywatcher 102mm F/12 Maksutov with a Baader Astrozap solar filer, mounted on a Skywatcher AZ-GTi mount, and a Canon 1000D camera at 1/320s and ISO100. Image Credit: Jim Sarsgard.

The following video of solar activity was constructed by Chris Callaway from two hours of data taken on the 19th May 2024 using a single stacked Coronado SolarMax II 90 and a ZWO178 colour camera.

These images were captured by Chris Callaway on 20 April 2024 using a Coronado 90 and ZWO178C camera on a Celestron AVX mount. Both images are the best 300 frames from 600 frame videos. Image Credit: Chris Callaway.

[Top]