July Fourth 2005 weekend afforded me the opportunity to do some
solar observing with the N8GPS and TV85. Several sunspot
regions were observed. The largest, Region 0783, is shown below:

Sunspot region 0783 (left of center) + others
03 July 2005 • 1930 UTC
TV85 + ScopeTronix Solar Filter + Celestron NexImage

On July 20, 2004 I was driving home, crossing the onion fields
of Pine Island NY, and for the first time ever witnessed sunspots
with the naked eye. It was just hazy enough to be able to look at the
sun's disk directly for brief periods.

At first I thought it was a cloud, but as the clouds moved across the
sun the spot remaind fixed. I pulled over and snapped this photo
(300mm zoom) just to be sure I wasn't seeing things. I wasn't.

The following Saturday (July 24, 2004) I humped out
the big glass for some closeups of Region 652.

  

Equipment: Celestron Nexstar 8 GPS, Thousand Oaks Type 2 solar filter,
Eyepiece projection with ScopeTronix MaxView DSLR and Celestron 40mm
Plössl (left) and 15mm Plössl (right). Camera: Canon EOS 300D
Digital Rebel (1/250 sec, ISO 400).

My first Solar photos, taken September 7, 2003. No major sunspot groups
sunspots visible, but small spot and limb darkening evident in closeup
photo of NW quadrant (upper left).