Mediocre Seeing

Waiting For Solar Drama

Turbulent morning air on an extremely clear, crisp October 11th made images waver. Patience eventually revealed some brief patches of steady air and allowed three good images of sunspots scattered across the Sun. The first image below is a 3-image mosaic showing complicated sunspot 1589 on the left a few days after it came into view on the Sun's eastern limb. Isolated on the right is sunspot 1586.

Sunspots 1589 (left) and 1586 (right) (Click for full detail.)

Sunspot 1585 was about to depart over the western limb:

Sunspot 1585 (Click for full detail.)

I'm waiting for a more dramatic display of solar variety before the year ends. Lately, only relatively uncomplicated, small sunspots have been widely separated on the Sun. My final picture shows small sunspot 1590 just emerging from the sun's eastern limb. This image contains some good clear examples of spicules, the grass-like columns of rising gas seen near the top center of the image.

Sunspot 1590 (bottom center) (Click for full detail.)