Friday, September 16, 2011

Spotapalooza - A festival of sunspots!

I am working remotely from my home office today, which provided me an opportunity to grab a quick peek at the Sun while eating some lunch.  I did not have enough time to make a hydrogen alpha sketch, but the white light view of the Sun revealed as many spots as I can remember seeing in several years.  It is a downright spotapalooza!  A festival of sunspots!  As it is mid-day, the atmospheric seeing conditions are a bit unsteady and it is difficult to tell how many small spots are in the larger regions.  Regardless, there are too many to accurately sketch them all while eating a sandwich and stressing out about job related nonsense.  Below is my sketch from 1840 UT, and a comparison image from the Solar Dynamics Observatory taken at 1824 UT.  I completed my sketch using my TEC 140mm APO and a Lunt Solar Systems Herschel Prism.

Click to enlarge  



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