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August 21, 2014: Some fireworks on the sun in H-alpha


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Following nytecam's heads up, I had a look during lunchtime, and had some wonderful views of a big, very active prom floating over the eastern limb. At first it looked broad and curved, like a boldface letter C, with the end-points of the arc pointing away into space, and some thin filamentous structures pointing north and south. Gradually, it changed shape, separating int thinner structures with various triangular features which always remind me of acacia trees on the African savanna. These did not seem to have a trunk, but floated eerily above the surface. From time to time it seemed to throw out thin long filamentous structures northwards, in particular. Just southwards of this complex, a very bright feature containing a ridge-like filament showed up. I kept an eye on this in case it would erupt, but it only showed occasional small outbursts in the form of short filamentous prominences coming and going from time to time. Much further south a "cauliflower" prom showed, which just stayed put. On the western limb a few fainter proms could be seen. East of the centre of the disk a sunspot showed, surrounded by some nice filaments, and the rest of the disk showed quite a few regions of bright plage and some smaller filaments.

Just as I was about to pack in, around 13:15 local time, I had a very nice surprise, as a huge, near linear prom popped up almost out of nowhere between the bright ridge-like feature south of the big floating prom, and the "cauliflower" further south. Really amazing how this feature suddenly appeared. If seemed to consist of two near parallel bright features, slightly curved as they pointed away from the sun. Lovely surprise at the end of a nice session. The big floating prom had also changed shape again, become much mre compact.

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Nice report Michael a great session by the sounds of it :smiley: I didn't take my Lunt away with me so I haven't done any solar observing since Saturday. However, I did have a great session last night.

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From this post I've finally realised what solar observing is all about.  It's not the static images of the sun that we see posted sometimes (although those are beautiful), it's the clear demonstration that our local star is alive -- and that really comes through in your text.  Thanks!

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