Telescope: Lunt 152mm
Camera: Imaging Source DMK21 mono
Barlow: Televue 2.5X
Prominence - 25 March 2014
Telescope: Lunt 152
CCD Camera: DMK21
Barlow: Televue 2.5X
LAST's observation session
Last Saturday, Lahore Astronomical Society took its members to 'Changa Manga' which is one of the largest man-made forest in the world. It has much better sky than the heavily light polluted conditions here in lahore and just an hour drive from my city.
On Saturday 22 March, i left home for Changa Manga forest at 10:30am. My solar telescope, Celestron mount and power tank, Laptop bag and projector were in safely put in my trunk. On my way i picked up Behzad, Mateen and Mr. Raza of tourism department who actually made our booking of the resort in the forest.
When we reached there, other members had just arrived. I informed them of our plan: First i will present a keynote lecture on the sun and halpha viewing, then we will all have lunch which will be followed by the solar viewing session.
The presentation went quite well.. lots of information was shared and many interesting questions were asked. In the observation session, many of us were the first to see through the halpha telescope. I distributed Charlie Bates' Solar Glasses to everyone there.. also to the staff of the resort.
For night time session we had four telescopes and some binoculars.. saw quite a few galaxies, clusters and usual planets. Clouds came in, as predicted, around 01:00am and we went to our rooms for a good sleep.
These are the pictures taken from many members of the astronomy society:
Report on "LAST' March 2014 Meeting
In this month's LAST's meeting, i delivered a keynote presentation on 'Space Race', a historical review on decades long struggle between America and Russia, to put man in space and later on the moon.
I first showed the society, a 10 seconds animation of a beautiful solar loop and a solar flare and if you were not in this meeting you would have to wait to see this because i have yet to upload it. All enjoyed a lot to see the burst of plasma coming out of the solar surface in such a short time. I talked in detail about everything happening everywhere in this animation so the viewers would better able to understand the magnetic activities happening on the solar limb.
I talked about Van Braun and Sergey Korolyov passion for rockets and dreams of man's travel to the planets and beyond; how they managed to put their countries' abilities to build rockets after World War 2 and the problems they faced.. and finally the flight of Yuri Gagarin, the first person to go to space in 1961.
Meeting was scheduled to end at 20:30 but we continued it till 22:00.. Ali Khan gave us a pair of lenses for a ready to work 'telescope in our pockets'.. Thank you Ali! Thanks you Rizwan Butter for always hosting us and the treat you always provide.
If you want to know what we talked, in detail.. go to the following LAST FaceBook page and there you will see Ali Khan's thorough report on our meeting:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/lahoreastronomy/
Next meet up will be in the field.. under the stars!
Outreach in Swabi, KPK Province
'Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology' is one of the most respected institute of engineering in Pakistan. On 16th February, 2014, i represented Khwarizmi Science Society (KSS) in the Science Fair which had attracted students from all over Pakistan.
For me, it was a 500 km of travel so i started a day earlier and slept a night in Islamabad. My presentation and hydrogen alpha observation, according to the invitation letter i received, was supposed to be from 10:00am to 12:00pm. I reached at the GIKI gate half an hour earlier. But when i asked a person at Science Fair desk to show me the program, there was nothing about my event. Ok.. so i had packed up my telescope and mount with all the other gear.. travelled 500 km from my home a day earlier.. now standing here at this Science Fair desk and my presentation is nowhere to be found!.. this did not look good. KSS people contacted the Science Fair folks and after waiting for 30 minutes i was told that they have allocated a slot for me from 11:30am to 01:30pm.. now i just had to wait for another hour.. perfect.
In 2010, i also came here with Celestron C14 telescope, it was such a pleasant experience then. Folks then at Science Society were much more welcoming and very well organized.. missed them all dearly, this year.
Anyways, i waited because there were about 300 students from all over Pakistan and i really wanted them to experience hydrogen alpha views from the sun.
It was a good solar observing session.. I handed over 100 solar glasses, which were so kindly donated to me by Stephen Ramsden of 'Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project'. This way these solar glasses were distributed to many corners in Pakistan and that.. just made me happy.
While traveling through Swabi, i saw many Rickshaws without number plates.. when i asked a driver why there are no number plates on these vehicles; he said traffic police does not stop us for this so we do not bother with the plates.. very friendly folks in Swabi Police :)
I also saw many police officers' photos on the electricity poles (the picture is in front of a Police Station).. they were Shaheeds (martyrs) of Swabi, died in terrorists attacks.. sad indeed.
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.
Solar Prominence - 11 January 2014
Big filament - 11 January 2014
There was a big filament on the sun today.. here are my four usual flavors of processing.
Sunspot 1944 Mosaic - 11 January 2014
Seeing was fair today.. this is a mosaic of 11 frames from today's session.
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.
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.
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!
Sunspots - 02 Jan 2014
Animated Prominence - 01 Jan 2014
The new year has started with a Big prominence on the sun. This video shows how it is moving.. Realtime here is a bit more than an hour.
