Sunspot Array

Hazy Sky

After more than three months of cloudy skies, uncomfortably high temperatures, and other obstacles a brief observing window opened for a few hours on the morning of July 28th. A cold front had passed through dropping the temperature to a comfortable 75 degrees. Humidity had decreased, and only temporary puffs of light breeze swept my observing site. The sky was milky white, however, from wildfire smoke, especially in the east where the Sun was gaining altitude. The following satellite image shows smoky conditions over my southeastern Virginia location.

Because observing windows are so rare these days I decided to set up my solar telescope in spite of the haze. Haze caused slight dimming and diminished contrast in the images below.

There were no particularly photogenic prominences this day, so I concentrated on capturing numerous sunspots spread across the disk. The following nine-panel mosaic shows the sunspot distribution and various filaments across the Sun.

A bright zigzag white solar flare was in progress to the left of the central sunspot group. These sunspot groups were active recently emitting several flares. The nine individual panels of the previous mosaic were made by stacking the best 400 individual frames from 4,000-frame videos.

The next two-panel mosaic was constructed by stacking the best 200 individual frames from 10,000-frame videos. By the time I captured the 10,000-frame videos seeing had improved, so sunspots are displaying good detail.

Next, are closeups of individual sunspot groups. First, sunspots 3762 to 3768 are showing magnetic arches on the left side.

The white zigzag flare seen in the first disk mosaic above had faded by the time the image above was recorded.

Finally, sunspots 3764 to 3767 include a few scattered white hot spots, including one that seems to be emerging from an umbra.

Click on images to enlarge and reveal fine detail.

The hazy observing window lasted only a few hours on July 28th. Then it was back to the usual summer clouds and heat. Due to recent complications in my life I was beginning to wonder if I would ever use my solar telescope again. It was nice to use the equipment once more.