Arrival and Departure

Sunspots Coming and Going

Can't seem to get a clear day when big interesting sunspots are centrally placed on the Sun's disk! Instead, weather seems to clear only when sunspots get near the Sun's limb. Then most of the interesting detail is not well displayed because the sunspots are viewed from the side rather than from above. But I have to take clear days as they come. July 7th was hot, steamy, and temporarily clear. It was so humid dew formed on equipment carried outside from the air conditioned house! The dew faded just in time to get some images before clouds began to form. Seeing was surprisingly good for about an hour.

I observed two departing sunspots about to rotate out of sight around the Sun's western limb. First, a 2-image mosaic of small departing sunspot 1513.

Sunspot 1513 right of bottom center. (Click for full detail.)

Second, a departing sunspot group - enormous active region 1515, exiting after several eruptions:

Active region 1515 (Click for full detail.)

Just arriving on the Sun's eastern limb was huge active region 1520 preceded by smaller solitary sunspot 1519. They are shown here in a 2-image mosaic:

Active region 1520 left of top center, 1519 bottom center (Click for full detail.)

Finally, three large, almost parallel filaments also happened to be present. Here is a 2-image mosaic:

Three filaments (Click for full detail.)