January 19, 2022: Great activity on the sun, with possible flare

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Just had a look at the sun with my Coronado SolarMax-II 60 mm in single stack, and the amount of activity is staggering. The huge sunspot just south of centre disc is out-classed by a smaller AR towards the two o'clock direction. It shows as a very dark smudge lined by some extremely bright plage on its northern edge. It really looks like it is flaring. De-tuning the etalon shows this AR as an almost linear dark feature. I am not sure if this is a weird sunspot, or a very dark filament that still shows in the detuned image. The other filaments seem to vanish, so it is likely the former, but I have never seen such an elongated sunspot.

Back to the tuned image, there are two thin proms on the edge at the two o'clock position, one very tall, and a shorter one. Some lower proms show on the western limb as well. Back on the disk, well north of the big sunspot, there is a very complex area of plage, sunspots, and filaments. To the south of the big spot several filaments can be spotted, one thin one running nearly north-south, and and one broad one more westwards. I hope I have time to have another look later, to see how the potential flaring area evolves.

Well worth a look if you have a chance

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Update: I had another look just now, and the dark blotch and bright flare have vanished. In that location there s only some minor plage to be seen. My best explanation for what I spotted previously is that there was indeed a flare going off when I first observed, and that material was being blown out, causing the dark structure just below. I most likely detuned towards the blue wing, and the filament structure I spotted was moving at quite a pace towards me, and therefore still visible.

[Peter Drew]

Always worth detuning Ha views as it can accentuate as well as diminish features.  I have noticed similar strange filamentary appearances during detuning and thought it might be due to Doppler effect.     🙂