Friday, July 14, 2017

The Spotted Sun

Lately, I have been experimenting with equipment in preparation for the up-coming total solar eclipse next month.  Most of my experiments have resulted in failures.

But one consistent performer has been my Thousand's Oak 77mm Solar Filter fitted to my Canon EF-L 100-400 mm lens.

Although I can't remember the last time I had clouds above my head, for some reason it didn't occur to me to attempt to photograph the large sunspot which has been travelling across the Sol's surface.

So, not long ago I put the filter on the lens and the lens on the camera and fired off a number of shots...after locating the sun in the viewfinder.  I had to zoom back to about 150 or 200 mm to locate the sun, then zoom in to the maximum 400 mm to make the image.

My Canon EOS 60D has a crop factor of 1.6 which gives a field of view similar to that of a 640 mm lens.

Below is the image I shot of Sunspot 2665.  The image was made at 2:24 pm, July 14, 2017.  Below it is a close-up crop of the sunspot itself.  According to a NASA website, Sunspot 2666 is located about eight sunspot diameters above and three diameters to the left of the complex shown in the lower right. I cannot see the new complex in my image, but it is made up of two rather small spots.



That's it for now.  Clear skies and good viewing!