Emerging Sunspot String

Prominences Too!

Miraculous clear sky continued on the morning of October 25th. A string of significant sunspots had rotated into view on the Sun's eastern edge and conditions were too good to pass up. When I began imaging at 11:00am EDT, wind was calm, temperature was 57 degrees, and seeing was fairly good.

The following 9-panel mosaic shows the sunspot string at lower left along with a number of filaments scattered about the disc. (Click on the image for an enlarged view.)

A good number of prominences were visible in addition to the sunspots. Some of these prominences are revealed when the previous mosaic is processed to show them.

The next 3-panel mosaic shows a closer view of major sunspots. From left to right below are sunspots 3873, 3872, 3869, and solitary spot 3868. The weird triangular-shaped dark filament above the sunspots has an unusual configuration. I find the emerging "baby" sunspots particularly interesting. One is above the triangular filament, and one is below. When you enlarge the image to full size you can see magnetic arches rising above these active areas. This mosaic shows particularly good detail when viewed at full size.Next is a single detailed picture of sunspots and accompanying prominences. When you click on the image to see the enlarged full-sized version, you get a good view of the swirling activity within the sunspot string.

Prominences were arranged all around the solar limb this day. I took 17 separate images, stepping around the limb, hoping to eventually combine them into a complete prominence limb mosaic. Unfortunately, one of the 17 images was slightly too close to the limb. I guess my concentration wavered during that one image alignment. Consequently, Photoshop would not combine the images well enough to produce a normal mosaic. I tried to salvage the mosaic as best I could and produced an imperfect version. I couldn't figure out how to remove the annoying "notch" you see below.

In spite of the screwed up limb mosaic, I really enjoyed eavesdropping on this complex sunspot arrangement!.