Today's sun spots

[Jannyfox]

Today (19 July) at 1754 BST showing some nice spots
Sigma 150-600 C at 600mm with mylar filter

Sun spots by Jan, on Flickr

 

[Fla5h]

Nice, hot of the press.

Looking at the options of a 150-600mm myself

 

[Norkie]

Fascinating, how large are they?

 

[chris malcolm]

Good crisp detail. I rarely succeed in getting such crispness with my 500mm and a big stopper, not sure why.

 

[Jannyfox]

Fascinating, how large are they?

Ooh, given the size of the Sun they're going to be big, but how big? I don't know. Now there's a bit of research for me to do. I'm trying to turn spot monitoring into a bit of a project. The last time I managed to photograph some was a few months ago and these are much nicer, and bigger. I need to learn as well. My knowledge is pretty limited to night time astronomy, not day time.

I got the Sigma for birds, but it's great for the Sun. Chris, it's on a tripod, which I guess you're doing too, with a proper (home made) mylar filter, autofocused on the Sun, but I always need to AF on the edge of the Sun. It struggles otherwise (no contrast to pick up on I guess). I'm using centre spot focus. Often I'll use a cable release, but I got away without it today.