Unusual solar eruption

This rather unusual solar eruption happened at around 15:10 UTC on the 5th September.

It's unusual in that it appears to erupt out of nowhere with no visible trail. It just seems to be a ball of plasma.

From the start of the event, about 4s in when a small disturbance can be seen on the limb, to the object disappearing was just 18 frames, equivalent to 4m 30s in real time.

Roughly scaling from measuring the PC monitor, it was travelling at about 1.54M km/hr.

Equipment:

Scope: Coronado PST

Camera: Altair GP-CAM3 178M

Mount: Sky-Watcher NEQ6 Pro

Time-lapse images taken every 15s, compiled to video using PiPP and VirtualDub

Thinking this really was something different, I contacted the BAA. BAAs Peter Meadows the director of the Solar Section got in touch. He passed it on to STCE in Belgium and they included it as an addendum to a news letter, along with another observation made by Scott Benavente in the USA.

https://www.stce.be/news/835/welcome.html

(Scroll to the Addendum at the bottom of the article)

Thanks to Peter Meadows (BAA) and Jan (STCE). 

Stills of the Sun around midday the same day.

On the left white light image, Sky-Watcher 80ED PRO

On the right Ha image, Coronado PST 

Perseids 2026

Some images of Perseids meteors taken on 14th August 2026

Camera: Pentax K-S2

Lens: Samyang 16mm F2.0 ED AS UMC CS

2026 08 14 02:31

2026 08 14 03:49

2026 08 14 04:38

The streak at the top and the one to the left of the tree are satellites.

Solar Eclipse 12th August 2026

Unable to get to a location with clear views of the Western horizon, I had to make do with observing from my back garden in Freshwater.

I was able to image from first contact to just past maximum.

Equipment:

Pentax K-S2 camera

Tamron AF 70-300mm LD Di zoom lens, set at 300mm

Pentax Rear Converter K T6-2X

Overall focal length 600mm

This image is a collage of three frames, a few sunspots makes the images more interesting.

My youngest daughter was lucky enough to be in Mallorca, right at the end of the path of totality and grabbed this image

Another view from Mallorca. Venus can be seen to the left of the Sun and Arcturus to the right and higher up than Venus.

My middle daughter was at a good location in East Cowes and grabbed these images

Still plenty of activity on the Sun

June 25th 2026, a few sunspots, filaments and a nice flare.

White light (Left)

Scope: Sky-Watcher 80ED PRO

Camera: QHY 268C

Ha (Right)

Scope: Coronado PST

Camera: Altair GP-CAM3 178M

Flare with a nice twirl to finish!

Impressive Solar Flare

 09:30, Friday April 24, Freshwater, Isle of Wight.

This magnificent flare was the first thing I saw after setting up for a day of solar imaging. On the left the Sun in white light, on the right the sun in Ha.

The white light image was taken with a Sky Watcher ED80 DS Pro, Baader solar film, QHY268C camera and SharpCap. The Ha image was taken using a Coronado PST, Altair GP-CAM3 178M camera and AltairCapture, it comprises two images, the first (centre) a normal exposure showing surface detail, the second (behind) overexposed to reveal prominences and flares. The flare appears to have originated from AR4419 which was extremely bright in Ha.

The images were stacked from 60 second videos, using RegiStax6 and processed with ImPPG and Affinity Photo 2.

 

New M51

After nearly two years of zero deep sky astrophotography I finally got round to doing a full recalibration of the rig. I chose M51 as my test target.

The image is made up from four 3 hour sessions, 17th, 18th, 19th March and 6th April, 90 x 120s exposures each night. It's looking good so far.

Scope:        Sky-Watcher ED80 DS Pro

Camera:      QHY268C

Mount:        Sky-Watcher NE6 Pro

Images stacked using Deep Sky Stacker and processed using Affinity Photo 2.