The Beast they call AR 2665. An animation of sorts. 13th July

[Iainp]

Blue skies yesterday, but I was out all day so missed the best chance of bagging the biggest spot of 2017 so far.

Typical. Equally typical, I was home today, and was faced with trying to grab something through thick and thin cloud all day. At one point, things cleared a little and quite a lot of blue sky appeared...except in the area the sun was. The cloud moved painfully slowly until after about 10 minutes the sun was about to break through the other side. Then the cloud slowed even more, and stopped, then (I'm not kidding) it reversed direction and headed back the way it had come! I've never seen anything like it.  Oh, and seeing was awful too. 

Anyway, must stop complaining, at least I  got some results and an animation of sorts: 6 frames over a 15 minute period. It shows just how active this is:

 

[Davey-T]

Bout time too  well caught Iain.

Dave

[Ibbo!]

Very nice indeed

[johnfosteruk]

Nicely done Iain. The animation is lively for only 6 frames.

[Pete Presland]

Some excellent detail visible there, it really is very active.

[Iainp]

Thanks guys, we're back to proper thick grey cloud now, so my 6 frames may be all I get! Hope you have better luck

 

[Iainp]

PS I just saw this on Spaceweather.com 

STRONG SOLAR FLARE: After 3 days of suspenseful quiet, huge sunspot AR2665 finally erupted on July 14th (0209 UT), producing a powerful M2-class solar flare. The explosion was underway for more than two hours and hurled a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) toward Earth.

[Macavity]

Interesting Stuff! A different SORT of animation - Courtesy NASA / Twitter:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasas-sdo-watches-a-sunspot-turn-toward-earth
But just watching a program re. CMEs and the perils of uz Earthlings... 

[xtreemchaos]

great animation Iain, glad to see you doing a great job as allways. thanks, charl.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice indeed

[Davey-T]

4 hours ago, Iainp said:

PS I just saw this on Spaceweather.com 

STRONG SOLAR FLARE: After 3 days of suspenseful quiet, huge sunspot AR2665 finally erupted on July 14th (0209 UT), producing a powerful M2-class solar flare. The explosion was underway for more than two hours and hurled a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) toward Earth.

According to the Daily Mirror NASA has " discovered a giant hole on the Sun, and called it AR2665, that threatens to end life on Earth as we know it " lol

Dave

[Iainp]

2 hours ago, Davey-T said:

According to the Daily Mirror NASA has " discovered a giant hole on the Sun, and called it AR2665, that threatens to end life on Earth as we know it " lol

Dave

Unbelievable! Let's hope nobody points a normal scope at the sun to see if it's "good enough" to see the 'hole' following the Mirror's "expert" advice:

"At 75,000 miles wide, the dark spot on our parent star is bigger than the diameter of our planet and - if you've got a good enough telescope - can be seen from Earth."

[MarsG76]

Love the nice and detail pics... the timelapse is great.

 

[paulastro]

Beautiful images Iain.  I have to apologise but I laughed out loud when I read about your rogue cloud doing it's best to thwart your attempts at solar viewing.  I only laughed as it has happened to me (or similar things) so many times before.  It's very easy to believe that some clouds have just got it in for you.  I do meet nice clouds as well, which move out of the way just as I need them to though which balances it up somewhat.  I suppose as a long-standing member of the Cloud Appreciation Society I should love them all equally, but this is hard to do at times .

[Iainp]

On 7/14/2017 at 17:28, paulastro said:

It's very easy to believe that some clouds have just got it in for you.

Thanks Paul! I know on some level the universe isn't really out to get me,  but sometimes you do wonder....   My set up time is 5 minutes flat ,and it's an extremely odd coincidence that on so many occasions I can start with a blue sky and it clouds over exactly the moment I'm ready.  My poor wife has heard me say "You could NOT make it up!!" more times than I care to mention . 

[johnfosteruk]

5 minutes ago, Iainp said:

My set up time is 5 minutes flat ,and it's an extremely odd coincidence that on so many occasions I can start with a blue sky and it clouds over exactly the moment I'm ready.  My poor wife has heard me say "You could NOT make it up!!" more times than I care to mention

Ditto!

[paulastro]

Thanks Iain, I have some sayings of my own I often mutter out loud when things do go wrong, but if I write them here the moderators may tick me off .

I also have things I sometimes shout out  aloud when things have gone very well or I observe something exceptional - I can't say what they are either I'm afraid .