A Full Day of Solar Viewing, Despite an Unfavourable Forecast - Saturday 2 May 2026

On Saturday a group of Flamsteed solar viewing volunteers arrived early at the Royal Observatory to set up for what the weather forecast predicted to be a short morning session of partly cloudy skies followed by the possibility of rain in the afternoon. For once the weather gods were on our side, the result being a full session of public solar viewing, starting around 10:30am and finishing just before 4pm.

Although occasionally interrupted by the odd group of clouds slowly drifting past on light winds, an estimated 500 visitors to the Royal Observatory were able to view the Sun through the observatory's Coronado 60 and a Sky-Watcher Heliostar H-alpha telescopes.

Although solar activity is expected to decline after last year’s peak there was still plenty to see through the scopes. Prominences around the solar limb, filaments in the Sun’s chromosphere and sunspots. Not easy to pick out though the H-alpha scopes,  the small sunspot groups present were easily seen with the help of the observatory’s "Sunspotter" white light solar projector. Observing highlight of the day was a rarely seen detaching solar prominence.

In addition to the solar scopes, several of the volunteers brought along their smart scopes giving queuing visitors a preview of what they were about to see through the solar scopes and providing some of the solar images for this report.

Images by Alec Knox & Yvonne Jacobs

Throughout the day Yvonne experimented with a Solarcan Puck to image the Sun. This is a simple pin hole camera loaded with photographic paper which captures an image of the Sun as it moves through the sky.

Image by Yvonne Jacobs

Many thanks to Alec, Claire, Eddie, John, Mike, Richard, Simon, Sara, Tej and Yvonne for volunteering. Some of us, expecting an early finish, hungrily made it through the day without a packed lunch.

Images by Simon Hurst & Alec Knox