Solar Astrophotography

I’ve been turning my hand to Astrophotography recently and usually we all think of it being a nighttime activity however after some experimentation I’m going to be trying some daytime shots of the surface of our Sun.

My first proper attempt revealed some active sunspot activity on the surface of the Sun!

Sunspots!

I was able to verify that it wasn’t simply dirt on my sensor by visiting the Soho spacecraft’s website which gave an almost live view of the Sun’s surface. The picture below is from two days after the shot above however with the sun taking 11 days to rotate you can still see the primary sunspots in both images.

To develop further I’ll need to find myself a mylar or ND filter as it took my camera to extremes to get the picture (1/8000 sec, f64, iso 32, 1000mm using the Nikon 200-500mm f5.6e with 2x tele). Not only that but I had to wait for a passing cloud to go by do as to reduce the light even further, hence the haze across the shot.