I would first of like to thank many of the CN folks here, and you KNOW who you are 
, who have both supported my efforts in testing and evaluating various "novel" filter combinations and have shown keen interest with VERY good interactive sharing of information for this type of less-common solar photosphere observational investigations. Many thanks to you!
I certainly hope this has been of interest to many, and I wish to add briefly (for me lol!) that for those folks looking at doing a bit more on the solar photosphere, or "white light" as it is referred to, that one can do a LOT more than one thinks, both photographically and visually, by employing unique filtering to your optical repertoire. Many find the solar photosphere somewhat predicable and maybe even dare I say - boring - but this is VERY far from the truth.
We have folks on CN and elsewhere doing some amazing investigations on Pro-Am (French group), with g-band photography and studies; several fine folks here have gotten amazing initial results with Spectro Heliographs, or SHGs as they are known, using various pass bands to show amazing and different details that are present in the solar atmosphere!
So with that preamble, here's my take on another interesting (in my case) visual approach to getting more details in the solar photosphere...
I have done several reports on observing in Sodium (Na-D or Na-I 589nm) light, using mainly my TS Optics 152RFT achromat. these have been both VERY interesting and fun, with amazing results. My new trails here are initial tests with the SAME scope, but in this case using the Baader "SWAN" filter(s) - these are primarily for cometary use (photographic mostly), however, it turns out that one of the primary and very significant solar spectral lines for Magnesium (Mg) - Mgb2 line specifically, are passing in this filter - at least initial analyses, and some early visual testing on other scopes have shown this to likely be the case. I'm not giving up om my use of sodium filtering, as I have some great stuff to work with, but I like having options, and in this case I do!
One primary reason, besides the "fun factor", that I have started this investigation, is that this filter is AFFORDABLE, AVAILABLE, and immediately ADAPTABLE to standard astronomic equipment. The Sodium yellow filters I have been testing require a bit more work to use effectively - while they have worked for me amazingly as well - these may be either out of the realm of some amateur enthusiasts to implement easily, or just plain too expensive for some. They also do not have the same degree of "robustness" that may be required to be used easily for many. Not all commercial specialty Sodium D-line filters are as well protectively-coated, or fit easily into standard astronomical equipment configurations.
These cometary Baader SWAN filters are much easier and possibly better suited in general for amateur investigations both visually and photographically, with minimal effort to adapt to what many have been using already. Big win! I should also add that this filter IMO, is even BETTER than the more commonly used Continuum filters (538-540nm), as some details NOT seen as well, or even perhaps at all, in the 540nm continuum filters IS detectable and seen in these. I suspect novel photographic approaches to using this to also show this as well. It is NOT a pure line filter, as there is still some continuum level "noise" to work around, but as an edge filter, it does grab a hybrid of extra details that are showing, and with good seeing, REALLY show well. I'm not knocking the Continuum filters, they work well also, but for VISUAL in particular, I find the more teal-green of the SWAN filters more amenable to my eye, similar to the very warm comfy views in the Sodium yellow tints those filters deliver. Just a bit less "loud" than the almost-lime color of the 540nm units.
I also employ lager binoculars for solar visual work, my APM 120mm SD binoculars work amazingly well on solar viewing, BTW. These SWAN filters (I have two) may be used for both solar observing as I wish, or for novel cometary investigations when an object warrants that use... So two things for the price of one, I guess.
The views in the SWAN filters, are slightly different than in the narrowband (<10nm) sodium views at 589nm, but a good correlation of details is seen here also. Primarily: so far, I have seen fine pores, VERY small spots, fine granulation, facular plage structures, and even plage deeper into the disk center, as well as penumbral filamentary detail, and light bridges, hot spot regions within Umbra, and so on. Yes - the photosphere IS alive with stuff like this, and filtering in these novel ranges brings a lot of this into view, expanding the experience of the user...
Okay - man I go on, hey?! Whew. Sorry - I like to review in case someone new is reading these reports.
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Today was better for seeing but not as good as 1 month ago when doing sodium so far. Observed at between 17:40-18:50UT, until clouds came in. light wind, seeing between 6-9/10 - average 7/10 today. Used my TS UWAN 13mm pair, with twin SWAN filters (to swap between for testing). 13mm = 69X in the 152RFT. A good starter power when seeing variable, and still have good rendition of detail and full-disk view!
During the ~30 minutes of best transparency and seeing...
WOW! I Just found out as I was doing this up that Larry Alvarez from Texas with his Orion 100 f/6 and Sol'Ex looks to have bagged/captured a Magnesium limb prominence - maybe a Flare!!! I guess this report is dry now... Way to go Larry - I think that this is a very new thing - never heard of THAT ever yet!!
Okay - ahem... where was I?
I think I'll just mention some highlights, no details today - I'd rather do some more work tomorrow with these. So far both filters looked to do a dandy job, very similar but I think one may be a tad more contrasty - will check again, and then mark them to tell them apart.
Granulation present over all the disk during seeing - very easy to see the "nuances", meaning... structural differences between granular regions. plage in some areas is more of a slightly brighter blank region, between granulation sections in the disk middle. VERY fine structure was seen in AR 13868 and 13872 Penumbrae again! pores and a cleft in 72's penumbral area which would have been fun to follow had I not gotten clouded out again! 
The "focal" tolerance at this 517nm regime is VERY similar to that for the sodium 589nm filtering - that is, focus holds well over about a similar range of travel - which means, my supposition in an earlier post has now been confirmed. It looks as if this TS Optics 152RFT has two areas of crossing - ~510 and ~590nm for optimal performance. this NOW makes this scope an optimal sodium/magnesium solar scope, as it is optimized in both areas - lucky, but it seems so!
More work coming - I can only do what skies allow. (and I am reeling with that news of Mg proms!)
Darren
The whole eastern side was still highly lit up with plage today too! -
