Solar outreach at LGS, Johar Town

What a wonderful solar outreach experience! .. the whole experience was one of the best in the past many years of my public observing sessions. Maroof Mian and Ali Khan were kind enough to accompany me on the occasion.

"Lahore Grammar School' Johar Town Branch is one of the best in lahore and the students i interacted with, proved it well. I started out by giving a 30 minutes lecture on the basics of Sun and what they will view from an hydrogen alpha telescope, using a keynote presentation in the school hall. The target audience were six classes of grade 5.

Then moved out to the football ground where Ali Khan and Maroof Mian helped me out with setting up Lunt 60 on Celestron VX mount. It just took me minutes to polar align the mount and see the sun in the eyepiece. Stephen Ramsden, founder of 'Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project' has been very kind and has sent me hundreds of 'Solar Glasses' absolutely FREE, which i took with me there at LGS along with a cool poster.

Each class came with a teacher.. I first gave them Solar Glasses and when they saw the sun.. they got so excited: "AALAA (meaning: super awesome).. WOW.." Some jumped on their feet with joy :) Then i told them that these glasses are sent from Stephen of CBSAP which is in USA. They said to please convey their thanks to them.. so thank you CBSAP from all those fifth graders!

In the end, students' science club gave me a hand made and a very beautiful 'thank you' card with all the members' signatures.. sweet :)

Thank you for coming on such short notice Maroof Mian and helping me in the very exciting solar viewing session. Special thanks to Ali Khan for staying with me till the end and explaining many students at the telescope how to observe better. Thank you Science teacher Mrs Shaista Irfan and other LGS folks for making this event such a success!

Sunspots - 05 Feb 2014

After many days of fog and clouds, today the sky classed me with good solar images.. I also viewed the Sun from 2 inch eyepiece, thanks to Stephen Ramsden of Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project.

Solar outreach at Buraq Space Camp

In the last week of December 2013, i went to Buraq Planetary Society's camp in Chak Shehzad, Islamabad. I carried with me lunt 60 hydrogen alpha solar telescope.

It was a wonderful experience.. Buraq Society selects a number of students across Pakistan and expose them with many lectures, demonstrations and hands on activities for about 10 days. They have been doing it for the last 20 years now and it was their 10th Space Camp.

In the afternoon, I mounted the solar telescope on Celestron VX mount and showed the sun to all 40 students (ages 14-16) with a Televue 9mm eyepiece. They were amazed to see a couple of sunspots, prominences and the textured solar surface. It was there first experience and they were totally mesmerized to see the sun in so much detail. I was asked many questions about solar magnetism, sunspots and prominences.. as well as usual WOWs and Oh my God.

I am thankful to Buraq people for inviting me over there and for their wonderful hospitality. I will be taking the big Lunt`152 in their next space camp!

About Buraq Society:

http://prezi.com/tbqspguz8zxs/buraq-camp/

http://phoneworld.com.pk/10th-buraq-space-camp-on-30th-dec/

http://www.khwarizmi.org/activities/2014/10th-buraq-camp-islamabad

Couldy sky today

No luck for me today for imaging sunspot 1944. Forecast is clear for tomorrow and i do hope i could image 1944 one last time before it disapperas.

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Prominence - 10 January 2014

Sunspots are not the only things happening on the sun these days. Here are a few prominences:

Sunspots AR 1949 - 10 Jan 2014

Active Region 1949 has appeared with one sunspot but it looks like a twin pair in this image.

Sunspots - 10 Jan 2014

Sun is very active these days and there are so many area to cover while imaging.. here is the two big active sunspot regions.. so much is happening here.

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Sunspot 1944 - 9 January 2014

Past two days grounded me and my telescope and we could not image the sun. But today was very different.. good seeing, no clouds, no fog, just me and my telescope and our love, the Sun in the sky.

Sunspot 1944 is nearing the limb now and soon will vanish from our sight. Following is the composite of two images.

I have also taken many many videos of this region for my third animation of this area.. But you will have to wait on this one.. its a huge data and will take so many hours for completion. Meanwhile enjoy this beauty. 

Sunspot 1944 - 5 Jan 2014

Though it was a bit hazy but still the seeing was good as the image here shows it clearly. Big sunspot region continues to evolve.

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Big Sunspot Region 1944 - 04 Jan 2014

As the sun turns around, big surprises await us. These images show Sunspot Region 1944 in its full glory, having many many sunspots in all shapes and sizes, indicating very complex and strong magnetic activity.

I tried a different setting of the doppler tuner of Lunt 152 today, one view showed a more white light like solar disk, the other a typical hydrogen alpha image.. this is new to me. Doppler tuner has so much to offer!

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Prominence - 25 Dec 2013

Last night it suddenly became cloudy.. I was not sure today i would be able to image or observe but as i got up in the morning, it was all clear.. the bright sun in the blue sky was just waiting for lunt 6 inch solar scope.

When i came to the observatory and attached the camera cable with my laptop, i immediately saw bad seeing.. waited for a while so if there is a temporary air current in the way, it should pass in a few moments. But the bad seeing remained unchanged. I had no choice but to capture whatever was available at the time.

Prominence & Sunspots - 24 Dec 2013

These are the few images i was able to capture today.. For prominences i was using 5 X zoom lens, which is in fact, extremely hard to use correctly.. It requires very stable atmospheric conditions otherwise the blurring or boiling effect of our atmosphere, which causes stars to twinkle, shakes the image on the screen so excessively that in the end a very blurred image pops out from Registax or whatever software is being used.

I have actually about 5 more videos of prominences from today's session but have not processed them yet.. may be later at night i will post them here and on Facebook solar groups.

 

Foggy winter

While driving my children to school this morning, i could barely see the road. Fog has also decided to stop the observation/imaging, for now.

Could not notice any sunlight on the ground so did not open the observatory. Sorry folks no cool images of the sun today, also no good hopes for the disappearing of the fog in these upcoming few days.. let's wait and see..

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