I finally have been looking at things astronomical; specifically, the sun. It seems like a very long time since I've been able to do that, and I've missed it. Ah, well. Such is life. At any rate, solar activity is starting to pick up in the new solar cycle 25. Here is what I was able to see on the morning of March 3rd.
This first image is of as much of the full face of the sun as I can image. It got the important pieces. The two white “spots” register as the sunspots 2807 and 2806 and show up as black in white light images of the sun. In general, things that show up as white in the Ha light my images are generally taken in are hotter than the surrounding surface of the sun; black is generally cooler. I really don't know why exactly the sunspots show up here as white, but they do. (I suspect it has something to do with the ability of the scope to tune to different frequencies of light.) Seen here are the two sunspots, a filament (the dark line) towards the top of the image, and a possible sunspot forming (or perhaps bubbling up) at the upper left of the image on the edge of the sun (about 10 o'clock).
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| 2 Sunspots, 1 filament, and possible spot forming near 10 o'clock position. |
The last two images show the prominences seen on the edge of the sun. The context of the images I believe to be roughly correct; the image with the prominence at the top of the sun is approximately at the north pole of the sun. That image is in color. The black/white image shows roughly the east and south of the sun, I think. I have difficulty determining the polar regions of the sun, so this is just a best guess. This is the most activity I've seen in quite some time.
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| Prominences at north pole area of sun (I think). |
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| A few more. |
