Sunspots

[AlexG]

Anyone been looking at the sun today? (Between the clouds here in London)

The latest SOHO pictures show two sunspots (on the mid-left) but observing with my PST just now showed two large sunspots lower down (with the PST they are on the right of course) with what looks like a long dark scar just above them.

I only got my PST a month or two ago and these are the first visible sunspots i have seen but they look remarkable - more like the large spots in the Soho ultraviolet shots - the green ones that always look weird. And the "brow" must be massive!

AG

[Paxo]

Just had a look at the latest SOHO images, definately some action going on there today. I might just have to get me one of those PST thingies afterall.

Steve..

Image below taken at 284 Angstrom by SOLO satelite.

[AlexG]

That's the one Steve, they look like two Mysteron eyes, lower down than in the photo, like two clear holes in a custard's skin (it's been a hard day, ) but I wonder what this dark line is nearby.

If only I could get the point and shoot camera to take anything but a fuzzy picture I would post it.

AG

[David Galvin]

[quote author=AlexG link=topic=24719.msg252203#msg252203 date=120637............ but I wonder what this dark line is nearby.

AG

Does this image help to confirm what you have observed?

http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Cai-Uso-Wohler-Ha2008-03-24--09h15UT-1_1206354631.jpg

The dark line is known as a filament and is just a prominence that is seen against the bright solar disc. If you could 'turn off' the disc and just observe the filament then it would also be bright.

See

http://solar.physics.montana.edu/ypop/Program/hfilament.html

[AlexG]

That's it, David.

Thanks for that, being a newbie to solar observing I was expecting sunspots to look like dark circles not clear patches.

I've seen a number of prominences over the past few months and now remember reading about filaments in the Coronado PST manual, but I didn't realise they could be so big or last for so long - it was there a couple of hours at least.

Finally wrangled the point and shoot to focus a little bit

(click to enlarge)

Spots are low down on the left, the filament is between them and a little lower.

AG

[Paxo]

Just taken a look at the Magnetogram (Gong + Magnetogram) from the Big Bear Solar Observatory:

http://www.bbso.njit.edu/

Shows the magnetic nature of the spots beautifully.

Steve

[Casus belli]

Just found my solar filter that I bought for the etx 90 2 days before I took delivery of the lightbridge. Frankly I forgot all about it. No wonder my Mrs goes mad at me.

Anyway I set it up this afternoon (Sunday) and I saw my first sunspots. I also attracted a posse of local kids. We're all agreed that sunspots are "cool"

We saw a single pair of sunspots which through the scope were on the right bottom half of the sun. One of the spots was approx double the size of the other.

This probably expains the aurora I saw on Thursday night.

[supernova]

WOW just had a look at the Sun with my PST and saw my first Sunspot :hello1: :hello1: :hello1:

With a 26mm superplossal and a 2x barlow

Chuffed

[AstroTiger]

Often if u look carefully @ the limb, u will spy some flares as well ;-)