Coronado Hydrogen Alpha and Celestron Nexstar (C11) Setup Instructions

NOTE: Please Be Safe! Viewing the Sun through high-powered optics can be extremely dangerous unless the proper precautions are taken and the necessary equipment is in use. Always make sure your telescope has the proper filters in place and you’ve taken the necessary steps to ensure your safety and the safety of your viewers. Please follow the steps below precisely so we can provide a safe and enjoyable solar viewing experience for all involved.

1. Equipment needed: a. Coronado telescope piggybacked on C11 telescope b. Coronado accessory storage case (with eyepieces) c. Celestron power cord (in same case) d. 11 inch solar filter for Celestron telescope e. Extension power cord f. Step ladder g. Sun information stand h. Safety instruction stand i. Visitor instructions stand j. Table

2. Setup instructions

a. Access to telescope storage area gained by obtaining key number 151 from sub post – be sure and have access clearance from staff

b. All equipment can be found in the storage area on the Terrace Deck. c. Take off the cover and roll out the telescope being careful not to go too

fast over the riser at the doorway. Pull or push the telescope legs rather than pulling the handle on the C11.

d. Take telescope to suitable area for best access to the sun (I like the area just north of the two umbrellas so I get some shade during hot days)

e. Bring all other equipment out to the same area, and set up the table for the accessories.

f. Lock the gate and the door to the storage area before setting up. g. Replace the telescope lens cap with the 11” solar filter, and tighten the

screws for security reasons. h. Insert the 40mm eyepiece in the C11, and the 20mm eyepiece in the solar

telescope. Be sure to tighten screws on the eyepiece holders. i. Place eyepiece guards and lens caps for the telescopes in the Coronado

case so they don’t get lost or taken. j. Attach power cord to the C11 and power outlet and turn on power. k. Use the number 6 (up) key to bring up the “Quick Align” option. l. You will be instructed to use the arrow keys to align the telescope with

true North and level the telescope tube. (Align the telescope by eyeballing 9 tiles on the terrace deck as a rough alignment for true North)

m. Use the level in the case to accurately level the telescopes. n. Press “Enter” to scroll through remaining options as the telescope will use

GPS to orient itself. This will take you through date, time and longitude/latitude coordinates for your location.

o. When alignment is complete, select the 5 key (Planets) and scroll with the number 6 (up) or number 9 (down) keys to Mercury

p. Press Enter and allow telescope to scroll to that planet’s position and come to a complete stop.

q. Use the arrow keys to point to the sun. A solar finder scope has been installed on the solar telescope that allows you to roughly align the sun. Once the sun is centered in the finder scope, use the eyepiece views to center the sun first with the solar telescope and then with the C11.

r. Once the sun has been centered in both telescopes, center interesting sunspots in the C11.

s. To align both telescopes. Loosen the solar telescope mount screws if necessary to align it with the sun in the center of the field of view, and then tighten them.

t. Replace the 20mm eyepiece with a 12mm or a 15 mm eyepiece to get a more detailed view with the solar telescope.

3. Visitor guidelines

a. Instruct visitors on solar viewing safety and what to expect on the sun that day, as well as direct their attention to the sun information stands.

b. Give visitors an idea of how they can best view the sun through the telescope by shielding their eyes from the bright sun. Have them cover one eye and use their other hand to shield the viewing eye from the bright sun.

c. Let all in the group look through the C11 first and let them know they may see sunspots on the surface of the sun in visible light through that telescope.

d. Then let them look through the solar telescope telling them they are now seeing the atmosphere of the sun and in order to do that you have to change the wavelength of light or color of the filter to red (the Hydrogen alpha line)

e. Instruct visitors to refrain from touching either telescope so they don’t misalign them. Ask children to use the stepladder and instruct them to hold on to the top rail only for support. This will help them to remember not to touch the telescopes. Use your hands or an appropriate object like a piece of dark paper to shield children’s eyes from the bright sunlight.

4. Telescope breakdown and storage

a. After the last visitor has departed turn off the power and unhook the cord from the telescope and outlet. Return the cord to the storage case.

b. Replace solar filter and eyepieces with caps and disengage the altitude clutch to return the telescope to the down position.

c. Place all accessories in the storage case.

d. Return telescope and all accessories (3 stands, stepladder, power cord, extension cord, Coronado accessory storage case, 11” filter) to storage area.

e. Replace the cover on the telescope. f. Check viewing area before locking up. g. Lock the gate and the door to the storage area.

5. Telescope Safety Tips a. Locking the solar filter on the C11 insures that visitors will not remove it

intentionally or otherwise. b. Lock each eyepiece to prevent them from falling out if you reposition the

telescope tube. c. Disengage the clutch in either the altitude or azimuth prior to moving the

C11 telescope tube manually. d. DISENGAGING THE CLUTCH ON THE C11 AND MOVING THE

TELESCOPE TUBE WILL NULLIFY THE INITIAL SETTINGS OBTAINED DURING SETUP.

e. MOVING THE TELESCOPE TUBE ON THE C11 WITHOUT DISENGAGING THE APPRORIATE CLUTCH WILL LIKLEY STRIP THE WORM GEARS.

f. When rolling out the telescope it may tip over the rise at the doorway so it will be necessary to lift the wheel frame over that rise. (Rodney may soon replace the small wheels with larger ones to alleviate that situation.)

g. It is always necessary to use the arrow keys to center the sun after finding Mercury. After using the keypad to search and locate any other object, it may be necessary to center it in the eyepiece using the arrow keys.

h. The C11 telescope was designed for nighttime viewing, so if you feel the tube has become too warm from use on a hot summer day you should cut the viewing session short and put the equipment away.

Visible Features of the Sun

SDO self updating and current videos of the sun’s activity:

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/SDO_self_updating_6.htm Current solar activity and more:

http://www.spaceweather.com Excellent explanation for the solar process:

http://www.oswego.edu/~kanbur/a100/lecture10.html

Following is an excerpt from this web site:

http://www.astronomyknowhow.com/sun.htm

You can view the sun as a projection, through a white light filter, or through a Hydrogen Alpha telescope or filter.

* * * * * NEVER NEVER look directly at the sun with your eyes or through any magnifying equipment (telescope, binoculars) that has not been correctly protected! It could be the last thing you see!

A full disc image of the sun taken by Jack Newton on a Solarview 50 Telescope, showing the main features that are visible in hydrogen alpha. Sunspots are the only features readily visible in white light, but you can occasionally see faculae and flares.

Sunspots Sunspots are the dark spots you can see when you look at the sun in white light (through an appropriate filter) or when you project an image of the sun on to a screen. The picture shows sunspots on the surface of the sun as viewed in hydrogen alpha. These spots are dark because they are cooler than their surroundings (a mere 4000K or so, compared to the 5780K of the surrounding photosphere - K is degrees Kelvin. IK = 1°C and 0K = 273°C, so to convert K to °C just add 273.) The sun generates very strong magnetic fields, and it is a localised concentration of these magnetic fields that causes the cooling that we see as sunspots. Sunspots usually occur in pairs or groups of opposite magnetic polarity that move in unison across the face of the sun as it rotates. They can last anything from a few hours to a few weeks, or even months for the very biggest. Interestingly sunspot activity exhibits an 11 year cycle in terms of the position and number of spots.

Plages The glowing region around the sunspot (seen in the picture above) is called Plage (from the French for beach). They always appear with a sunspot but can outlive them. They are bright dense regions of the chromosphere.

Faculae Faculae are bright areas in the photosphere that are visible near the limb, or edge, of the solar disk. They appear a few hours before a sunspot that arises in the same place and can remain for months after the sunspots have gone. They are also the result of the magnetic fields produced by the sun, being areas where the magnetic field is concentrated in much smaller bundles than in sunspots. While the sunspots tend to make the Sun look darker, the faculae make it look brighter. The word facula comes from the Latin for 'Little Torch'.

Prominences A Prominence is an elongated structure full of material hundreds of times cooler and denser than the surrounding corona. They are held up and insulated by huge magnetic structures and are seen as prominences at the edge of the sun against the black background of space. They can stay suspended above the photosphere for weeks and even months, but eventually become unstable. Surprisingly, rather then collapse at that point, they actually erupt!

Filaments Filaments are prominences that are within the disc of the sun as we view it, and so are seen as dark lines of cool matter and against the hotter bright chromosphere behind.

Flares Solar flares are huge explosions on the surface of the sun, throwing out massive amount of material as matter is heated to millions of degrees in a few minutes. It can last from minutes to hours.

Granulation A collection of granules - a bright region or cell ( about 1000 km across), which cover the entire Sun except for those areas covered by sunspots. They are formed by hot gases rising to the photosphere, spreading and cooling and falling back again - hence the bright centre and darker edges. Individual granules last for only about 20 minutes so the pattern of granulation is continually changing as old granules are pushed aside by newly emerging ones. The flow within the granules can reach supersonic speeds of more than 7 km/s (15,000 mph) and produce sonic "booms" and other noise. Shown on the right in H-Alpha, granulation can be seen in white light as well.

Coronal Mass Ejection Often associated with flares and prominences, a coronal mass ejection (CME) is the release of a huge amount of coronal material - measured in billions of tons and traveling at supersonic speeds.

Hydrogen Alpha

Faculae – patchy white light brightenings not visible in Hydrogen Alpha

Flares – intense, abrupt releases of energy associated with Delta and Gamma Groups

Granulation – small convective cell structures

Definitions

Hydrogen AlphaDefinitions

Filaments –prominences on the surface of the sun

Prominences –Hydrogen alpha emissions projecting beyond the limb of the sun

Sunspots - relatively cool dark spots appearing periodically in groups on the surface of the sun that are associated with strong magnetic fields. They are visible in Hydrogen alpha but the penumbra are lower in contrast

Hydrogen Alpha

Wings of Hydrogen alpha – wavelengths slightly off 6562.8A. Blue wings are shorter wavelengths and red wings are longer.

Definitions

Hydrogen Alpha

During the start of a sunspot cycle the leading sunspot in the northern hemisphere is magnetic north while the trailing edge is south.

At the same time a leading sunspot in the southern hemisphere would be south while the trailing sunspot is north.

Approximately, every eleven years the charges in each hemisphere reverse giving us a 22 year sunspot cycle.

Hydrogen Alpha

ALPHA – A single sunspot is dominant

BETA – Two sunspots are dominant

GAMMA – A complex group with mixed polarities

BETA GAMMA –Bipolar groups with more than one north south magnetic line

DELTA – Umbrae of opposite polarity in a single sunspot penumbra

Sunspot Groups

Hydrogen Alpha

CLASS 1 – Quiescent filaments/ prominences. Longer lived and appear less prominent.

CLASS 2 – Active filaments/prominences. Live a few minutes to about 4 hours and much brighter.

Prominence Classification

Hydrogen Alpha

A Delta group is present A large umbra exists without a penumbra There is a very bright Hydrogen alpha

emission There is a new flux on the leading edge

sunspot A filament crosses a Delta Group Strongly sheared magnetic configurations

are detected

Scientists Can Predict the Onset of a Major Flare May If: