See Spot(s) on the Sun

Today is a very exciting day at the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter as we will be formally dedicating the 32-inch Schulman Telescope later this afternoon.  The weather today is stunningly clear and warm and fortunately I had enough free time this morning to make a sketch of the Sun in white light.

Using my 102mm doublet achromatic refractor with a focal length of 1100mm (f/11), a Lunt Solar System Herschel Prism, and a 16mm eyepiece I observed the sun for about 30 minutes, completing my sketch at exactly 1600 UT (9 AM local MST).  To the right of my sketch is an image captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory this morning not long after my sketch.

North is up and west is to the left.  For those of you who may not know, the Sun rotates from east to west.  In other words, the large dark spot just inside the southeast limb (which is as of yet an unnumbered region) has just rotated into view.  Besides the complex spot regions, the facula surrounding departing region 11465 in the southwest was quite bright.

Click to enlarge