Solar Feature Outburst!

Sun Wakes Up!

After some time without dramatic surface features the Sun's eastern side displayed great variety on November 11th. My brief observing window opened at 11:29 am when the low autumn Sun emerged from behind a cursed tree. The observing window closed a bit over an hour later at 12:35 pm when obscuring clouds thickened in the south. I worked quickly to capture 26 video clips before my luck ran out.

The first image below is a 12-image mosaic showing the nice array of features on the Sun's eastern half. At least six big filaments are visible along with six sunspots and one huge prominence. Far left of center, just emerging around the Sun's eastern limb, are sunspots 1614 and 1615. Slightly left of center is sunspot pair 1611 with solitary spot 1612 below the pair. In the bottom part of the image sunspot 1613 emerges near the limb and sunspot 1610 is off on the right. A beautiful wide prominence floats above the bottom limb.

Sunspots, filaments, and one big prominence (Click for full detail.)

Inversion of the previous image highlights floating filaments.

Beautiful suspended filaments! (Click for full detail.)

A closer view of complicated sunspot group 1610 and the S-shaped filament to its right was obtained with a 3X Barlow lens. This time no interference fringes were present!

Sunspot active region 1610 and filament (Click for full detail.)

Two filaments near sunspot 1610 stand out in this inverted image.

Sunspot 1610 with filaments (Click for full detail.)

An enlarged view of sunspots 1611, 1612, 1614, 1615, and nearby filaments is shown next in a 2-image mosaic.

L to R: Sunspots 1614, 1615, 1612, and 1611(pair) (Click for full detail.)

The inverted version below makes it easy to see arches of gas following magnetic field lines between opposite magnetic poles in the sunspot pair 1611 in the upper right:

My 2012 observing season is almost over because the Sun is getting too low. With luck it might be possible to squeeze one more session in before the end of November.