Hi Rashad!
I usually suggest "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Sun" ISBN 0-521-78093-4
as a primer. For observation programs I've found "Solar Astronomy Handbook"
ISBN 0-943396-47-6 to be pretty helpful- the material is a bit dated but
still very worthwhile. The first one will be the most useful for the
questions you list.
Clear skies,
Bill Dean
-----Original Message-----
From: sf-bay-tac-bounces@No-Spam [mailto:sf-bay-tac-bounces@No-Spam] On
Behalf Of Rashad Al-Mansour
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 4:45 PM
To: sf-bay-tac@No-Spam
Subject: Re: [TAC] Solar lunch-Palo Alto 8/11
Hi Marek,
Reading your report from work, I rushed home because Sun was shinning in San
Francisco! Unfortunately the seeing was very bad. :-(
But, even with the bad seeing conditions I could see three major sun spots,
two very large filaments a number of bright flares and a few prominences
using my Coronado PST.
I had a two very nice days with this scope while up at Plettstone over the
weekend. The views were fantastic! I never thought that I would get into
H-Alpha observing because of the cost, but this scope is the answer to a
cheap-skate's dream. :-)
What I need now is reading material. I need a book that will, in language I
can understand, explain the Physics of what I see in the eyepiece. I what to
know things like, the gravitational escape velocity of the Sun, how far off
the sun's surface can a prominence rise? Stuff like that. I want to be able
to answer most questions that will be asked of me will I'm out in a public
setting.
Thanks...
Rashad
----Original Message Follows----
From: "Marek Cichanski" <marekc@No-Spam>
Reply-To: marekc@No-Spam,The Astronomy Connection
<sf-bay-tac@No-Spam>
To: "TAC" <sf-bay-tac@No-Spam>
Subject: Re: [TAC] Solar lunch-Palo Alto 8/11
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 15:16:13 -0700
I can second Michael's comments about spot group 649. I'm looking at it with
my SolarMax 40 / ED80 combo, and it's looking very nice. Lots of bright and
dark surface detail. Probably mind-boggling in a double-stacked scope.
I'm not 100% sure of my midday plans tomorrow, but I'll try to swing by and
join you, Michael. I'm in the neighborhood.
I'll also be at MB before sunset today and tomorrow, doing some H-alpha.
BTW, loved the writeup from the Sacramento-area observer! It was fun to read
about how she was bitten by the H-alpha bug.
Marek Cichanski
Received on Tue Aug 10 17:59:41 2004