Solar observations

[george7378]

I'm not suggesting, I'm INSISTING! I know it's a far-out conspiracy, but with my 'mountain of evidence' and my internet buddies, it may just get enough followers!

 

[RisingFury]

It's nice to see the Sun waking up again.

 

[george7378]

It's nice to see the Sun waking up again.

It sure is - active region 1082 has almost rotated off the disc now, but there is another region close to the other side which has no sunspots yet, although it is exhibiting a large facula (essentially a hydrogen cloud several hundred KM above the photosphere). There are a few pores of sunspot activity further East of 1082 - I doubt they'll last long though.

 

[george7378]

Hi everyone,

There appears to be a large sunspot rotating onto the disc - there is an easily visible penumbra too. Here is a picture:

 

[george7378]

There's a massive sunspot on the disc now - well worth a look with projection or a filter:

 

[Andy44]

These are fantastic photos, guys, keep it up!:thumbup:

 

[RisingFury]

Wow! That's huge! Have you measured it's size yet?

 

[george7378]

These are fantastic photos, guys, keep it up!:thumbup:

Thanks If you have any photos, please add them too! This large spot will look very nice even just projected onto some paper with binoculars.

Wow! That's huge! Have you measured it's size yet?

I haven't, but it's probably around twice the diameter of Earth!

If you want to look at the latest SOHO image of the Sun, you can go here:

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.html

I always check it before going out.

Happy observing!

---------- Post added at 16:29 ---------- Previous post was at 11:37 ----------

Here are today's shots of the sunspot:

You can see the umbra, penumbra and even the surface granulation here, as well as some slightly brighter areas (faculae) to the right of the spot:

A zoomed out disk shot:

 

[RisingFury]

Wow! These are stunning!

 

[george7378]

Thanks :thumbup:

There's another little sunspot further West of the larger one - it is tiny in comparison.

 

[Andy44]

WHy does it look so blue? Is that the filter you're using?

 

[george7378]

WHy does it look so blue? Is that the filter you're using?

I think it's the camera. The Sun looks neutral white through the filter, but I often have to change the camera settings to make the spots show up on the bright background, and it seems to like changing the colour to blue. It may also be the editing program.

 

[Warped]

There is a single large sunspot on the sun right now, I went out and projected it. It was really neat!
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_mag/512/latest.jpg

 

[george7378]

I've been watching that one too - did you photograph your projection?

---------- Post added at 19:38 ---------- Previous post was at 19:27 ----------

Also, here are some more photos from today:

---------- Post added at 19:49 ---------- Previous post was at 19:38 ----------

I also made some slides showing the movement of the spot from the 26th to today:

 

[Warped]

I sure did.

its pretty low-res, as you can see!

 

[george7378]

Nice try Thanks for posting!

 

[george7378]

Well, sunspot 1084 is all but gone, however, the south-eastern solar limb is crackling with activity, and there is already a facula visible. What will slide into view in the next day or two?

 

[george7378]

I got my first look at the large spot known as 1087 today, and, although it was cloudy, windy and I didn't give the scope time to cool down, I managed the umbra and penumbra regions of the larger spots, and the smaller pores of activity around them. I also saw some nice surface granulation.

 

[JEL]

I'm not sure if I photographed sunspot 1087 (where do you look that info up?), but this is a photo I took this morning at 08:00:20 European time (UTC+2, so 06:00:20 UTC)

I actually got it while video'ing the clouds, and they acted as a filter which allowed this photo to be taken from the video. So no cardboard projection or telescope or sun-filter or anything was used, just a video-cam pointing at the sun with the right amount of clouds in between
A lucky shot I guess.

 

[george7378]

That's 1087 all-right! I have seen that happen with the clouds before, but I've never seen any spots through them - that was a lucky capture! Thanks for posting. I believe that the ancient Chinese first discovered sunspots by looking through thin cloud like that.

You can get info on the sunspots and other space weather phenomena like NLCs here:

http://www.spaceweather.com/

Thanks again - fantastic shot.