Solar flare question

[Gregnat73]

Hi

While looking at spaceweather.com (no chance of seeing the actual sun today!) I started wondering if you can see solar flares as they erupt? (assuming you're looking in the right place at the right time with a PST) and if so what would you see?

[ronin]

Believe that you can if they are large enough and at the right place - edge, and you have the magnification.

Some years back at Sidmouth I think someone was demonstrating imaging the sun through a PST and used a sedtion of the sun with a flare for the demonstration. He was lucky, he could actually see the sun and had a flare to look at.

It was in Ha, but that seems to be the standard wavelength.

[Merlin66]

Yes, if the timing is right, you'll see them in Ha with a suitable scope.

[Gregnat73]

Thanks for the answers!! Something to look out for then... not very likely I know but you never know!! (what would it actually look like? A change in brightness? Material escaping into space?)

[Peter Drew]

Flares occur all over the disc and are more noticeable when on the disc than at the edge. They are characterised as beeing much brighter than any of the other features, appearing white hot and of relatively short duration, average about 15 minutes. Don't confuse flares with prominences which are seen as red projections at the edge of the Sun.

[JB80]

I captured one forming the first time I set my cam up, it was an M1 Flare I believe. I concur with it appearing as a bright spot.

The vids are not great by any means but it will show you what the sort of thing you would see is, although visually in a PST everything would be much more red.

[matthewota]

I own a Coronado Helios H-Alpha solar telescope. I witnessed a solar flare only once in it, and it was the only time I saw any color other than red in the telescope. THe flare showed up as a white crack shaped object onthe face of the chromosphere.

[matthewota]

By the way, solar flares are relatively rare and are not visible in white-light solar filter equipped telescopes. Those filters show sunspots on the photosphere.

[markt]

Solar flares are reasonably common and through the eye peice you will see a brightening patch on the solar surface, maybe brightening over a few minutes to an hour or so. Then then gradually decrease back down in brightness.