My solar observing season tends to run from about February to the end of October. As I’ve noted before the Sun is too low to clear the roofs of the surrounding houses.

For the last few seasons I’ve been sketching the view of the solar disc through my Coronado PST (Personal Solar Telescope) and occasionally augmenting that with white light details of Active Regions (ARs).

I thought it might be interesting to compare the views from this time of year. I only started seriously recording at the end of the 2016 season, so the record isn’t a long one, but at least both the images below were made using the same equipment and are limited to Hα views.

As the days of British Summer Time get longer a compensation for me is that the Sun is rising high enough to be visible again from my northwest facing garden.

I love my solar observing in both the Hydrogen Alpha (Hα) wavelength of the Balmer series, using a Coronado Personal Solar Telescope (PST), and with a normal telescope in white light, but with a Herschel Wedge removing around 99% of the available light for safe observing.

And now I’ve forgotten to post through March… which is a shame because it was a huge improvement over February. Not only a big uptick in the quantity of observing opportunities, but lots of variety in my observing diet too.

Both this month and the last have started with some Lunar observing. I’m starting to take this increasingly seriously just as the Moon is due to sink lower in my sky until it disappears behind the house until Autumn… still you have to start sometime, and I’ve decided now with the Charles Wood’s Lunar 100.

The morning of the solar eclipse and looking to the East it’s not a pretty picture. I can see the location of the Sun, which is a major advance on yesterday, but it’s not even bright enough to show up through the solar filter… not good.

Optimism wins out, and I decide to set up the solar telescopes – white light and hydrogen alpha (Hα) – before having breakfast in the hope that luck will be with me today. It owes me a break since the night time trend is for me to get cloud when others get pristine skies.