This is the first light with my new ZWO ASI533MM-Pro camera, which replaces my ASI120-MM, and with the addition of a 2X Barlow. I broke my piggy bank for the new camera to get a lower noise capture (1.5 e read noise vs. 4.6 e), better dynamic range (13.5 stops vs. 10.5 stops, with 14-bit capture rather than 12-bit). And now, even with a 2X barlow, I am able to easily get the full solar disk. The sensor was really too small on the other camera, so  I was not able to get the full sun in the frame even at prime focus. Further the new camera has cooling, which is important as my camera sensor can easily get to 40+C while imaging!

Unfortunately for first light there was a lot of smoke in the air due to all the forest fires way off in western Canada, but I thought it good enough to at least get everything setup for a better day. After all, the new camera was burning a hole in my pocket.  The haze really reduced the contrast for the prominences, and caused some artifacts at the solar limb, but otherwise, I was surprised by the quality of the results for my throw-away test run.

This animation was captured as individual SER 16 bit videos at 2600x2600 pixels of 15 seconds duration and at 25 fps, so ending up with about 375 frames total. Each video was separated with a delay of 75s. The videos were stacked at 25% in AutoStakkert with 1.5x drizzle, then sharpened in Registax.  The better resolution with the 2X barlow meant Registax did not enhance the pixelation, which was great news. The final video was done in PhotoShop, with added curves and levels adjustment. The surface was inverted, so dark areas are  brighter and hotter, white areas are darker and cooler. Also, a colored version  was generated. Note the changes in lighting across the disk during  the animation is due to differences in the density of the smoky haze in the sky. I’m just glad I’m not closer to this, and breathing this smoke in.The inverted light streaks  are filaments, these are prominences but highlighted against the Sun's surface, rather than at the limb.

Filaments/prominences are areas where the sun's magnetic field has lifted gas above the photosphere. Compared to the photosphere surface they are cool and thus dark (here inverted to be light), while at the limb, they are bright relative to the sky.The darker spots are plages, these are bright hot regions in the Sun's chromosphere, which are controlled by the photospheric magnetic field concentration of the faculae below. The other dark filaments are spicules, which surround sunspots (which inverted also appear bright): the spicules are thousands of km tall, but only hundreds wide. The rest of the surface is covered with small bright and dark filaments.In the animation there are many interestingly active areas, please zoom in as you please to watch them dance:·   

• Just right of centre, there is a spicule (prominence) waving in the magnetic field breeze from the Sun.·
• Below and to the right is a spicule that ejects itself into space along those magnetic field lines, driven to dive back into the Sun, all within the 23 minutes of the animation.
• There are also a number of active plages (dark), also right of centre, that grow remarkably  during the animation.

Stay tuned for animations with much better conditions, surely I will get some good skies soon…