Copyright ©2017 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
I read at Spaceweather.com over the week-end that the latest sunspot AR2665 was HUGE, and the biggest sunspot of 2017 so, not having photographed the Sun for sometime I thought it would be interesting to make an image of this Sunspot on the Sun. I dug out my solar filter then Monday morning set up my camera in the backyard and waited for the morning sun to climb above the mountain tops. I cropped this image in 25% so we can see the spot a bit better.
“Sunspot AR2665 has grown into a behemoth almost as wide as the planet Jupiter: Stretching more than 125,000 km from end to end and containing dozens of dark cores, the active region is an now easy target for backyard solar telescopes. Sunspot AR2665 has a ‘beta-gamma’ magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares.. “~http://spaceweather.com/
I’ll add you can see it with a Telephoto lens, and Solar filter. Caveat: Don’t ever attempt to photograph the sun without a Solar Filter. You can permanently damage your eyes, and your camera’s sensor.
M-Class Solar Flares are Medium sized flares. They can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth’s polar regions.
I use an Orion 4.10″ ID Full Aperture Solar Filter. It fits snugly over my lens allowing me to look directly at the sun and photograph it by blocking 99.999% of incoming sunlight for safe observation and astrophotography. I’ve had this filter for several years and it’s worked perfectly, and is easy to use. It fits my 300mm f/4 perfectly. It slides over my 200-500mm’s 82mm front end element, but not so far that I’m able to secure it with the screws so, to make sure it wouldn’t fall off I taped it to my lens barrel. Gaffers tape or Painters tape works.
I linked to the filter so you can check it out if you’re interested. I am not affiliated with Orion and do not receive any compensation or products for using their products or mentioning them.
Nikon Df| Nikkor 200-500mm @500mm| SanDisk Digital Film| PS CC 2017
more to come…
