What did I see? Solar flare?

[Andrew*]

First of all, at about 10.45 I saw a fairly large, dark filament appear just W of the main active region. Oddly, it was most visible right outside of the sweet spot, and almost invisible in the sweet spot. I concluded that it was moving fast towards me, shortening the wavelength to just outside the wavelength range of the etalon, but still in the sweet-spot range.

Within 15 minutes this filament had disappeared, just as quickly as it had appeared. Now, however, the active region had a very different appearance, with very bright luminous strings through and around it. I've never seen such bright regions in an active area before (although I did see a similar effect on AR1089). It appeared like aurora appears from space - like it was electrically charged. At 11.30, it was still like this.

I've never seen either of these two effects before and cannot explain them.

Anyone else see it?

Andrew

[Peter Drew]

Hello Andrew. Yes, I think I also saw the phenomenon that you described. I have seen this effect in the past, almost like rivers of lava running down a volcano, these active areas are worth keeping an eye on as they can erupt into spectacular flares. I have some video sequences of this captured a few years ago with a Coronado Helios I solar telescope and Astrovid 2000 camera.

[Peter Drew]

Andrew. Similar appearance in progress right now (18.17)

[Andrew*]

Thanks Peter, what a shame I can't get out and check it out until 7.30 or so.

I observed at about 4pm and noticed the sunspot group had evolved quite a bit since 11am. Evidently a very busy active region...

Andrew

[brianb]

AR 11099 (the new active area near the "twin spot" AR 11093) was flaring this morning, you probably saw an eruptive filament resulting from this - it would have been significantly blue shifted as the ejection velocity is huge.

[Andrew*]

That is SO cool! That possibly takes the spot of the coolest thing I've seen in this hobby!

And the subsequent "lava flows" - any idea what that was?

Andrew