by Michael Swartz
The wind made for very soft seeing. But the wind aside, the sun did not disappoint today. There is a large pair of prominences on the east side that must easily be 50,000 miles high, perhaps more. They appeared to overlap or intersect. One was more round and the other was brighter and more fountain like. It was quite spectacular. You can look at spaceweather.com and see the sunspots visible today. The larger one I suppose is about Jupiter size. It has a nice visible prenumbra. Around that it looks like there is an outward flow that is bordered and shaped like an eye. Still further outward are additional patterns that make the entire area look something like a flower. Further to the opposite side is another sunspot group that in white light looks like a nice spread out group of smaller sunspots with a couple that are earth size or larger. In h-alpha that area is very active. There are opposing swirling patterns and patchy brighter areas all over. A few other scattered filaments looked like dolphins leaping out of the orange sea below.
I also noticed that if I place the upper hemisphere down a little lower so that it is just above the middle of the field of view, with the binoviewers I can really see the bumpiness of the solar surface as it rises up to the top edge of the solar disk. At that angle I am looking at the side of the bubbles, waves, or smaller filament structures. I am not so certain what they are but I can definitely see the contour.
So in spite of the sometimes cold and gusty wind I enjoyed the viewing. Still, clear skies are better... but after so many days of rain, clouds and too much work it was nice to be able to see something.
I was joined now and then by a curious passer-by. So I was able to do a little show and tell to some really nice people too. And that made it even more enjoyable.
Maybe I see YOU next time!
Clear skies and free sunspots for everyone!
Posted on sf-bay-tac Mar 14, 2005 13:29:18 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 14, 2005 19:38:40 PT