As I mentioned this morning, I wanted to get out to image the large sunspots that have been present for the last couple of days, and that have been throwing off powerful (X2) flares. This is “first light” for the new computer. I had previously loaded FC, and it connected and performed flawlessly.

I was set up with the G11, NP101/2.5xPM/ASI290. By 0920 I was pointed at the sun and waiting for it to ascend above the trees. It was 60F, and there were occasional slight surface breezes when I started the session. The breezes grew stiffer while I was waiting for the Sun to clear the trees, but still quite intermittent.. The sky was rather clear, but there were scattered high thin clouds and lots of contrails, maybe more than I have ever noticed. Astrospheric reported the seeing as Average and the Transparency as Below Average, both of which seemed consistent with what I was observing.

The Sun made it above the trees and I started capturing at about 10:05. I had two capture runs that each captured to active regions. The first set was AR2993 and AR2994, and the second set was AR2995 and AR2996.

The good: Every thing went very smoothly, even with a major new piece of gear (the laptop) added into the mix.

The bad: Unexpectedly found the mount to be one hour off, but I realized that having the battery out of the control panel to check the voltage caused that to happen.

The ugly: …was not too ugly. It was the high thin clouds, which I think is what knocked down the detail that I had hoped to see in the sunspots.