If butterflies are your main hobby then Winter presents a challenge, especially if you're a fidget like me.
To keep myself busy while the butterflies are away I take an interest in Astronomy and in particular, the Sun.
I have a special telescope that allows me to look at the sun safely ( in something called "Hydrogen Alpha" ) and I amuse myself whenever the Sun appears by gazing at it through the scope and sketching the sunspots and other exciting features.
Our nearest star really does put on an incredible show. No two days are alike. You can watch the sunspots or dramatic scenes when for example the Sun throws out huge fountains of plasma into space ( the experts call these "Prominences" ).
It's all very exciting.
Anyway, I've just treated myself to a special camera that I can fit onto my telescope and today when the Sun came out I was able to use it for the very first time
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The camera takes black and white video footage which can then be made into a single photograph. I don't have PhotoShop so can't colour in the photographs but here you can see a very rough photograph of a group of sunspots on the face of today's Sun. The hair-like lines are "Filaments".
And here is a lovely prominence
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On the scale of these photos the Earth would be about the size of a full stop.
So these are my very first efforts at Astrophotography. I haven't a clue what I'm doing as will be obvious to anyone who knows about this subject but it's a start and I hope you've found it interesting.
