Sun Clouds

Plenty of Filaments

On September 4th my sky was beautifully clear, but the Sun was cloudy. Several dark filaments were scattered across the solar disc. The filaments are displayed with good contrast in the first image below, a 26-image mosaic made with a 2X Barlow lens.

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The inverted version of the previous image highlights the cloud-like filaments.

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The next picture is a 9-image mosaic showing the two biggest sunspots. Sunspot 1836 is above sunspot 1837. The filament in the upper right exhibits the nicest apparent "float".

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Here's the inverted version. Check out the floating filament in the upper right.

I used a 5X Barlow lens to produce the following magnified image of the area in the upper right of the previous picture. The solar chromosphere is definitely not smooth!

The next two images, made with a 5X Barlow lens, show sunspot 1836. The sunspot looks like it is about to be swallowed by an approaching pacman-like pair of forking filaments.

Sunspot 1837 had interesting activity to its left as seen below.

Finally, one prominence featured a fascinating floating portion suspended above a lower base.

Observing conditions were almost perfect on September 4th. Low humidity, mild temperature, and nearly cloudless skies made imaging very pleasant.