Solar Flare

Explosion in Progress

During the morning of October 7th a complex sunspot group produced an M1 class solar flare over a period of about 3 hours. At this time my sky was clear and observing conditions were excellent. For a telescopic sun watcher like me this was like winning a lottery prize! Here's a satellite picture of cloudless Virginia while the flare happened (from the Penn State Weather Wall Map). My observing site is marked with a red X. There was no wind, the atmosphere was steady, and temperature ranged in the upper 60's. Conditions don't get much better than this, although I was buzzed by a few hovering yellow jackets! Two neighboring sunspot groups produced the flare. When I began recording at 13:54 UT (9:54 EDT) the eruption was already in progress. In the next image sunspot group 3116 is on the left and 3112 is on the right. The flare is in the white overexposed areas left of the largest umbra. (Click on the images for enlarged views.)  Later, at 14:35 UT (10:35 EDT), the situation had changed. The next image shows the sunspots 41 minutes after the previous image was recorded. Seven minutes later, at 14:42 UT (10:42 EDT) the white energetic areas deformed further.  My last image, captured at 14:56 UT (10:56 EDT), showed more changes. I quit imaging when seeing conditions worsened. Apparently, I stopped before peak flare output, as you can see in this graph from the Space Weather website. It shows the timing and intensity of the flare. It would have been nice to record a series of evenly spaced images over an hour or more to produce a smooth time lapse flare animation. Unfortunately, it's only possible to animate a time span of 21 minutes between 14:35 and 14:56 UT with four unevenly spaced pictures. The greatest changes happen in the white eruption just above center. Small arching filaments also change shape just to the right of the biggest dark sunspot umbra.  Next is a 9-panel disc mosaic which shows the sunspot group nearly centered. A few filaments are scattered about. There were nice prominences around the solar rim as you can see in the next 15-panel mosaic. The disc has been overexposed to make the relatively dimmer prominences stand out.  Just as in my last observing session, the eyepiece view of prominences was outstanding. The delicate, fan-like prominence on the bottom was particularly beautiful! In the eyepiece the Sun and prominences are a deep red color that I find difficult to faithfully reproduce in my images. The next picture, with overexposed disc blacked out, attempts to capture the eyepiece view. It doesn't quite do the job, however. All images above can be enlarged for a more detailed view. They look best that way.
  

Scattered Sunspots

Good Seeing

Sometimes observing conditions are so good it's worth setting up my solar telescope even if solar features aren't particularly outstanding. September 26th began mild and cloudless with occasional gentle breezes. Temperature ranged from 68 to 73 degrees during the morning observing window. Most importantly, the atmosphere was very steady, so there was "good seeing". No big dramatic solar features were present, just a scattered bunch of relatively small sunspots as you can see in the following 7-panel mosaic. Sunspot 3110 is the dark umbra left of center. A group of small sunspots stretches diagonally upward across the lower right. From left to right they are sunspots 3107, 3105, and 3108. The mosaic image can be enlarged to full size without blurring detail because seeing was so excellent. Next is a single close image of sunspot 3110.  The string of small sunspots 3107 and 3105 are portrayed in the next image which also looks good at full enlargement. Previous images were all made with a solar filter tuned to the exact wavelength of red hydrogen-alpha light at 656.28 nanometers. Tuning the filter away from this wavelength produces an image that fails to show surface spicules and filaments, but still shows sunspot umbras and penumbras. The next image shows many small scattered umbras in the 3107 to 3105 sunspot groups. Unfortunately, this picture has annoying vertical fringes not removed by a flat field frame.  Only one significant prominence was present on the northwestern limb. Notice spiky spicules on the top limb. The excellent observing window only lasted one hour before clouds began appearing on the southeastern horizon. Seeing conditions also deteriorated, so it was time to quit.
 

Active Solar Limb

Prominences All Around

After two months of cloudy, hot, humid weather a mild, cloud free morning good for solar observing arrived on September 15th. The sky was milky white from high thin haze. Temperature ranged from 72 to 75 degrees during my brief 50-minute observing window. Despite a promising 9:40 am start, clouds began appearing at 10:40 am and atmospheric turbulence increased. I always have to hurry to capture images before conditions worsen.

On this day only a few relatively small sunspots were present, but a nice array of prominences were scattered around the Sun's limb. These prominences were spectacularly bright and clear when viewed through the eyepiece of my solar telescope! Image quality below really doesn't match the eyepiece view this time! I wished I could have shared the view with others, but no one was available or interested, so I enjoyed them alone.

The next image is a 6-panel mosaic of the southern solar hemisphere processed to show prominences around the edge. Although the disc is, consequently, overexposed, you can still see two sunspots. The large arching prominence on the lower left is really grand! Northern hemisphere prominences were also numerous as shown in the next 6-panel mosaic. Activity associated with departing sunspot 3098 in the upper right included some spiky eruptions. These show more clearly if you enlarge the image by clicking on it. Here's an enlargement of sunspot 3098 and its spiky emissions. Two sunspots in the southern hemisphere appear in more detail in the following imperfect 6-panel mosaic processed to show disc detail instead of prominences. Sunspot 3102 is on the left and sunspot 3100 is right of center. Next is a closer view of sunspot 3102. This long lasting sunspot previously disappeared around the Sun's western limb almost three weeks ago. As the Sun rotated it then traversed across the solar back side for almost two weeks before emerging around the eastern limb to appear as it does in the image below. The large arching prominence was near sunspot 3102. The suspended arch was considerably dimmer than its base near the limb. I always have trouble making prominences stand out from noisy background. Prominence detail is hardly improved in the following yellow colored image with blacked out disc. I  look forward to cooler weather and clearer sky as autumn begins.

Rainbow!

Evening Colors

A rainstorm moving from west to east passed by on the evening of August 4th. Glancing out a window afterward I noticed a dark, stormy sky in the east and bright sunshine in the west. Conditions looked good for a rainbow. Sure enough, there it was!  A faint secondary rainbow was also visible. The lower the Sun, the higher the rainbow arc. In the picture below you can see evidence of the Sun's low altitude in the form of a tree shadow on the house. The next picture shows the whole arc in a slightly distorted panorama. Notice the usual brightening within the primary rainbow's arc.It's nice to see a rainbow every once in a while!

Filaments Galore

 Spectacular Solar Scenery

On July 12th only a brief cloudless window opened to allow imaging an active Sun. After 45 minutes setting up my equipment I recorded the first video clip at 10:18 am EDT. Scattered clouds began appearing 51 minutes later at 11:09. Twenty minutes later it was too cloudy to continue! This happens frequently at my observing site. It seems like I'm always rushing to get images before clouds interfere. This day I roasted in 80-to-85-degree temperatures, although an occasional breeze helped.

Future weeks of cloudy weather were forecast, so this was an opportunity I couldn't miss. Lots of solar features made my effort worthwhile as you can see in the first image below. It's a 12-panel mosaic made with a 3X Barlow lens. Each panel is a stack of 400 best quality frames selected from a 4,000-frame video. (Click on the image to see full detail.)

Several spectacular dark filaments are scattered across the disc. They are relatively cooler gases confined by magnetic fields above the hotter chromosphere below. In the image's upper half, from left to right, are sunspots 3057 and 3053. In the image's lower half small sunspot 3056 is at left and major spot 3055 is near center. The next image is an inverted version of the previous image. Here white areas are cooler and dark areas are hotter. Filaments appear like white clouds floating above the surface underneath.

Next is a close view of major sunspot 3055 and accompanying filaments. Evidence of curved magnetic field lines can be seen in the complicated sunspot structure. 

Smaller sunspot 3053 was near an interesting long curved filament.

Only one portion of the solar limb contained prominences of note. Tiny sunspot 3056 is near a white active region. A portion of sunspot group 3055 is visible near the right image edge.

I was exhausted after this rushed and sweaty imaging session, but happy to successfully capture some spectacular solar scenery.
 

Old Pictures

 Photo Restorations

I recently obtained old photo albums belonging to my Aunt Carol who played an important role in my life. She was born in 1915, and I mostly remember her as an old woman. So it was very interesting to see pictures of her as a child and young woman. For example, the next picture shows her 101 years ago in first grade. Aunt Carol is third from the right in the first row. Check out her high shoes. The original picture was blemished and cracked. I manually repaired it, as you can see in the following animation. Another interesting photo was taken eight years later in 1929. I'm guessing Aunt Carol was in 8th or 9th grade at the time. Once again she is third from the right in the front row. This photo was less damaged than the 1st grade picture, but I still cleaned it up: Seven years later, at age 21 in 1936, Aunt Carol posed in front of a car that looks impossibly ancient today.

During World War II, eight years later, Aunt Carol joined the Waves (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), a women's branch of the U.S. Navy. She trained pilots using a device known as a Link Trainer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_Trainer ). The next picture shows Aunt Carol at the controls of the flight simulator which is visible in darkness at upper right. Next is a brighter picture showing an occupied trainer along with controls in the foreground. Aunt Carol, with headphones, is seated on the right edge. Notice the amazingly outdated 1940 technology in front of the blond controller. There are big honking vacuum tubes instead of invisibly small transistors, analog dials instead of digital displays, and the controller is turning dials instead of using a mouse or joy stick.

Aunt Carol is actually sitting in the trainer in this next picture taken at the Naval Air Station in Melbourne, Florida in 1944. I assume the others in the foreground were part of the training crew. Aunt Carol was the youngest of my father's siblings. She was also the most independent and ambitious. She held a variety of jobs during her career and was a pioneering woman in many of them. A lover of warm weather and beaches, she spent most of her life in Florida where she lived to be 99 years old, just 25 days short of 100. Here she is in 1941, 26 years old, on one of her beloved beaches.

Beach Time

Sunny Days

Weather was nearly perfect for our annual beach trip this year. Only one brief overnight shower interrupted a string of beautiful mild sunny days. The rental house was in good shape. Keegan, our resident engineer and handyman, set up a hammock and hammock chair with Sophie's help on one of the porches.It wasn't long before Sophie and C were relaxing in the hanging chair.Father and daughter enjoyed hanging around.It's only a short distance to the beach. Annabelle goes in her specialized "Wike".The well-equipped family heads off to the ocean.

Ellen and Keegan spent hours relaxing under their new Sun shade. Sophie got some nap time between water activities.

Annabelle doesn't enjoy the beach very much because she's mostly confined to her "Wike". She REALLY enjoys the backyard pool, however, where the buoyancy of her neck float allows her to move around by kicking and paddling. She happily drifts around chirping/singing her characteristic "Oh, yeah" as she goes.After beach time everyone hangs around the pool while Annabelle has her fun.Sophie loves her phone at the pool or inside.

Sophie loved the new dress she got while visiting boardwalk shops in Duck.

Annabelle likes to sit at the table with everyone else.Ellen and I have a jigsaw puzzle bash each summer at the beach. This year we started with an ambitious 1,000-piece Wentworth puzzle featuring colorful birds. Assembly was initially daunting because pieces had unusual shapes. It was hard to identify border pieces without the usual straight edges. Eventually, we got the hang of it and finished in less than a week. The end result was quite pretty!

With extra puzzle time available, Ellen broke out another bird puzzle. This one was much easier, with only 500 traditionally shaped pieces. With Sophie's help we soon finished.Ellen and Keegan posed for a nice sunset portrait up in the crow's nest.

Traffic on the drive home was amazingly backup free this year, even on the 8-mile-long nightmare construction segment on Interstate 64. Maybe construction will finally be complete for next year's trip, but, at the present progress rate, I'm not hopeful.