Tiny Flare

Sunspot Movie

It's been a long time since I tried to make a solar movie. During my last observing session, on August 27th, I tried watching sunspot 2149 where some rapid motion had just occurred. Unfortunately, nothing huge and dramatic happened while I watched. Beginning at noon EDT I recorded 400-frame videos, one every 60 seconds, for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, nothing seemed to be happening, so I stopped recording. There were enough videos to construct 31 still frames for the following time-lapse movie which condenses 30 minutes of solar activity into about 3 seconds. The movie runs over and over in a continuous loop.

Some things to notice:

• The brief white outburst of a tiny flare to the left of the sunspot.
• The darkest central part of the sunspot, the umbra, is not uniformly dark, but, instead, broken into detailed dark segments.
• Two small, dark features shoot radially outward to the right of the umbra through the penumbra, the light annular region surrounding the umbra.
• The penumbra also displays outward moving penumbral waves like those from a stone dropped in a pond.  

(Be patient while the movie loads. if it doesn't play automatically, click on it.)