Scattered Thoughts . . .

The sun was shining this morning so, on my way to the bathroom for my morning cleanup and visit, I immediately turned on my new Ha (hydrogen alpha) solar filter so it could warm up.  This particular filter requires power to keep the etalon (interference filter) at the optimal temperature so I can see the most details.  The wavelength band varies very slightly by controlling the temperature of the etalon.  The more finely tuned the temperature setting, the more details you will see.  The filter requires about 10 minutes to warm up so I turned it on before washing up and brushing my teeth so it would be ready when I was ready for the day. I then headed out into the frigid single digit temperatures (just like the other morning) with the battery pack in my pocket and the telescope and mount in my hands.  I carefully made my way down to the end of the icy driveway where I have an unobstructed view of the sun quite low in the southeastern sky. I had far more success at pointing the telescope

I took a break from packing for our train trip to do some solar observing and imagery.  It is sunny and relatively warm today (in the 30s) so I wanted to get outside for a little bit.  This also gave me a chance to test my homemade solar finderscope while mounted on my telescope.  The finderscope worked fine which made easy work of finding the sun.  There is still so much snow out there that the sun was blinding in the bright sunlight!  I couldn't see a thing on my camera when I mounted it on the telescope.  It was difficult getting my settings correct and then it was difficult seeing well enough to focus.  I managed to capture a pretty good image of the sun though.  Although I captured a sunspot on our sun today, we're actually in a lull lately for solar activity.  We won't hit peak in solar activity again until 2024 if I remember correctly.  Last summer was exceptionally dull with absolutely no details seen on the surface of the sun when viewing in white light.  Now,

Sheila has had a problem tooth for about ten months and we've been bouncing from dentist to specialist, back to dentist, then to another specialist during this time.  First, she hoped for a quick filling or repair... no such luck. She was scheduled to see a specialist for a root canal... went for a consult... more waiting for the actual procedure... Then when the root canal was to be done they told her they could not do a root canal because the roots of the tooth were intertwined with the nerves in the jaw. They then scheduled an extraction with a different specialist.  A consult appointment was scheduled for an extraction and that appointment was yesterday. In the meantime, Sheila's breast cancer had returned and we started all of those appointments a week or so ago.  The oncology surgeon had told Sheila that the tooth extraction was now on the back burner since the cancer surgery is more important. That being said, we didn't want to waste any time so w