From Randy TATUM
@. . . . Thank you for sending the CMOs and
emailing me the sunspot photographs. I enjoyed seeing your fine photographs! I
often use a pentaprism and polarizing filters for white light observing. Have
never used a Herschel wedge, but result must be similar.
The weather here has been
very good recently and there is much in the sky to enjoy. I observed the large
flare at Bon Air Solar Observatory (Ragland) on 11-4. It produced a major radio
blackout and several faint loops on the disk. This flare produced a lot of
energetic particles, but was not a great x-ray flare. It was perfectly placed to cause a geomagnetic response. On the way
home from work on 11-5 (1015 pm) I noticed reddish glows near the zenith and
headed to a site about 30 km West of Richmond. I had a wonderful view of the
aurora till 1230 am. The colors were red, white, green and blue.
I
have seen two other displays and this was by far the best! My photos turned out
fine even though the f-stop was wrong. The Leonid meteor shower was well
observed here. The humidity was high that night and fog was a problem near
Best regards to you for the holiday season.
(
Randy TATUM (