Scattered Thoughts . . .

W ith the frigid temperatures outside being down in the single digits and sub-zero range everyday, I've been trying to keep busy indoors.  Of course, by saying "I've been trying to keep busy" I am referring to keeping busy in the little bit of spare time I have between health issues, daily physical therapy, daily piano practice, and down time.  Still, I like to accomplish something and learn something each day regardless of whether it is a good health day or bad health day.   The windy frigid temperatures have kept me indoors.  I don't even like going outside to get the mail in this weather so Sheila does that most days!  As I've written in this blog often, my health fares quite poorly in warmer environments (in the 80s and above) but I've been very sensitive to cold environments also as I approach 60 years old (in a few months, in case anyone wants to know).  I simply have zero tolerance for cold environments now.  (Watching the grandkids at the ice rink

I am all set up to do some solar imaging but I am now waiting for the sun to clear the trees.  This time of year, the sun travels very low across the sky so I only have a relatively short window of opportunity to observe or view the sun.   I plan to start with some white light observing and imaging of the sun's photosphere.  My solar wedge solar filter includes a Continuum filter as well as the usual IR/UV Cut, Neutral Density and Polarizing filters which has always worked fairly well for me.  I've observed and imaged this way before so there is nothing new with this configuration.  I plan to do something new today too though.  I now have a narrowband 3nm Calcium K filter inside a different solar wedge filter that I have yet to try so that will be part of today's plan.  This should produce nicer results.   The one "different" thing about this filter is that this Calcium K filter is not an observing filter.  Actually, my eyes should see nothing through this filter.