Solar activity 27 March, 2010

This past week has not afforded much chance for observing.  Between work, weather, little league and my birthday, it has been busy!  The good news is that I survived turning 41, and Ian's little league team the Diamond Jaxx are 2-0.  Ian is playing great in the infield and his bat came alive in the last game where he went 2 for 3 with two doubles and four RBI's!

I made two quick observations of the sun this morning, despite a rather turbulent atmosphere.  Throughout the observing time, the sun looked like it was boiling, and the moments of steady seeing were fleeting.  Sketches were completed this morning between 1630 and 1705 UT (9:30 and 10:05 MST).  I updated my computers scanning software, and these scans are not of great quality:

The highlight is Active Region 11057 which shows some very dark spots in both Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) and white light.  In Ha (the left sketch), AR 11057 has a strong magnetic field as evidenced by the many curving field lines emanating from the area.  There are several dark "eyelash" shaped fibrils within this region.  Active region 11058 is in the northwest and is mostly unremarkable.  It does have a distinct 'V' shave to it.

In HA, there is another large area of weak activity in the southwest, where two long, thin filaments are observed in the midst of this activity.  There is also a large and dark spot visible in both HA and white light (the right sketch) on the east limb.  In white light some facula is seen associated with this spot - yet this region is not yet designated with a number.