Today's sunspot observation was made with the help of Buttercup, a 60mm achromat refractor. The above photo of Buttercup was taken shortly after I had completed today's sunspot sketch. The short cardboard tube visible on the front of the telescope is a home-made solar filter utilizing safe, Baader Solar Filter material. Permanent eye damage or blindness is likely to occur if proper safety procedures are not followed when observing the sun. The telescope's finder has black covers over both ends as a further safety measure.
Today's sketch, shown above, has north up and preceeding to the left. The image is mirror-reversed due to the use of a star diagonal. A magnification of 70x was utilized. The sketch shows just a small region within the telescope's field of view.
When sunspots are observed near the limb of the sun one should always look for faculae -- areas that appear brighter than the background solar surface. Faculae were noticed and sketched today, but those regions do not show up well in the scanned image.
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