Solar Update (a.k.a. Russ's substitute for NFL Sunday) for 3/8/98

Session start at 10:00 local time and ending 11:25

Seeing ok up to 100x , calm , 58 deg. F

This week has much less disk details, especially spots than last week. Just 3 groups, all on the Right-hand half of the image. The most nticable, a large spot with dark penumbra at the 1 O'clock position and 5/6 way from the center to edge. The next is a group along the equator at 1/3 way from center to edge, a complex group with two lines of spots and some lines and swirls above and below. The third is much less active and is at the 5 o'clock position 7/8 way from center to edge. The extended granulation, the "orange - peel" appearance of the disk, was less than last week's.

What the sun lacked in spots, it twice made up for in prominences. At 9:30 (LH edge) a formation I name the christmas trees, since there are four of these of varying intensities, each with a ragged edged cone with the wider part towards the disk but not touching it. The base of each had a single column attaching it to the disk. At 100x the cones had some wavy lines in them radiating from thier center, making each look like a little scotch pine.

At 11 o'clock a single grand streak , with a slightly curving thin bright line almost 15 percent of a solar disk diameter long! This took up most of the field at 100x.

From this faint line, are faint tufts and streaks going outward, making the whole thing resemble a feather, and that's the name it gets. Right next to it, a small flat mushroom cap of bright material. I look back at it over the course of the session to see if it develops, but it stays flat. Some prominences do this, and others burst from small projections like these to grand towers in just 30 minutes. At 3 and 5 o'clock are formations I call grass, which is just a tuft of thin streaks and lines going radially out from a small patch. Very often they converge at thier outer fringe, instead of diverge. They are seldom active and look the same for hours. At 1 o'clock a patch of grass with a few hooked ended lines and next it a formation I nickname M57, because it looks like the ring neb, with an edge of it touching the disk. This hoop has lots of knots and swirls in it, and has some pale shading inside the ring, but alas , no central star:-).

Lastly and bestly, at 4 o'clock, a single squat wedge explodes into 40 minutes of rapid expansion. It starts out the same intensity as the disk and slowly loses this as it expands. It quadruples in size in 4 minutes, forming a shape that looks like a thunderhead cloud, and later the top cap of this moves /expands in a direction toward the solar north pole and starts developing a 3 pronged claw end. This at first paralells the solar limb but soon lifts away and is pointed into space in just 20 minutes. It slows to a crawl at this point, and I leave it to pick up my sunday chores, and enjoy a actually nice weekend day, with not a drop of rain in it.