Six Sunspots

Pleasant Observing Conditions

Although the sky over my Virginia observing site remained hazy from Canadian wildfire smoke on June 5th, only a few widely scattered clouds were present. Occasional light breezes and temperature ranging from 63 to 67 degrees made morning observing conditions very pleasant. The Sun presented six sunspots and several filaments shown in the following 23-panel full disc mosaic. Solar activity is continuously increasing!

The previous image was processed to show disc features. Details show well when you click on the image to enlarge it. Different processing reveals prominences around the solar limb in the next image where the disc is, consequently, overexposed.

Four sunspot areas along with filaments and a prominence are shown in the next scenic portion of the solar landscape. From left to right are active area 3327, then elongated sunspot group 3323, then large umbra 3321. The small umbra of sunspot 3320 is in the upper right corner.

A slightly different region is portrayed in the next image which shows the dark umbra of sunspot 3326 in the upper left corner along with 3323, 3321 and 3320. Sunspot 3325 sits near the right edge.

View the next image of 3323 and 3321 at full size to see complex structure in best detail.

A diffuse filament floated near the top of Sun. The 2nd inverted image emphasizes cloud-like filament elevation.

Filaments across the disc float nicely above the surface in the next inverted disc portrait which shows best at full size.

I was able to capture images for only one hour before increasing clouds closed the observing window. Images showed good detail in spite of mediocre seeing.
 

Fading Solar Flares

Eruptions Decay

During my last solar observing session on May 22nd I was able to see two solar flares. Although I missed the initial development of each flare, I was able to make small time lapse animations of their decline. The flare in active area 3312 faded away over 20 minutes between 9:47 and 10:07 EDT as shown in the first animation below:

(The individual frames in these animations run from start to finish in an endless loop.) The flare seems to sink into the background.

The other flare, in sunspot 3311, disappeared in only 10 minutes from 10:14 to 10:24 EDT as you can see in the following 11-frame animation:

Each individual frame in these animations was obtained by stacking the 100 best frames from a 1,000-frame video. I recorded one video clip every 60 seconds.