April 2012 Astrophotography Contest Winner:
Sun by rray6

Hello Gang,
It's been a while since I have posted anything here because I have spent the last year (+) getting my rolloff observatory overhauled and a new AP1200 mount set up in New Mexico. Living in Houston, TX makes this a long and slow task so my deep sky observing has suffered. But not my solar observing. The submitted image is approximately 200 frames stacked from my Imaging source DMK 41 camera, using AviStack 2.0 (a freeware like Registax). My scope was a Lunt 60mm Ha B1200 Double Stacked. After processing with Photoshop, I was happy with the detail I got even though it was a not a good day (very hazy but you take what you can get). When I checked my records, this was actually taken on March 25 (we have seen very little sun for the last month in southeastern Texas).

A lot of solar activity is evident since we are heading into the solar maximum (2013). The image shows notable prominences on the limb with the one at the upper right being a pretty nice looped prominence. Sun spots, spicules (hair-like features around sun spots), filaments (dark lines on the surface which are actually prominences), and granulation are evient. The slightly false color (Photoshop) helps bring out some of the detail. I hope to image the May annular eclipse and will post my results then. Thanks for looking.

Robert