Sun Wakes Up

Two Significant Sunspots

Recent months of sunspot drought temporarily ended on April 2nd when two good-sized sunspots were visible on a cool, cloudless day. A northerly breeze accompanied 51-degree temperature as I set up my solar telescope to begin observing before noon. Seeing was not particularly good, but blue skies and sunshine were very welcome.

My attempt to construct a whole disc mosaic failed because I was careless when capturing constituent panels. But the smaller successful 9-panel mosaic below shows almost all major solar features present. Complex sunspot group 2645 is on the lower left. Sunspot group 2644 is near the right limb. A few prominences sit on the western limb.

Seeing conditions improved for a while as morning hours passed. The next image is a close view of sunspot group 2645 made by stacking the best 100 frames from a 3,000-frame video. Notice the fine detail present in the dark sunspot umbras. This sunspot group deformed surrounding spicules making a pattern similar to iron filings sprinkled near a bar magnet. White energetic eruptions sit between outlying umbras. (Click on the images for a larger view.)

Sunspot group 2644 was churning with activity near the western limb. I recorded 21 minutes of the action by capturing one 500-frame video clip every 60 seconds. Each video clip yields a still image which becomes one movie frame. The repeating movie below runs at 10 frames per second, so it compresses 21 minutes of solar action into about 2 seconds. Movies like this always make me wish I had recorded longer. Unfortunately, I had to stop too soon.

The Sun may soon go back to sleep, so I'm glad I was able to observe this temporary burst of activity.