November 15, 2020
Brief Summary of CR 2236
By Kim Hay
ALPO Solar Assistant Coordinator
CR2236 started on October 5, 2020 at 00:18 UT and ended on November 1 at 07:20 UT.
The uptick in the number of Cycle 25 sunspots that were produced made for an exciting month. Sunspot Numbers for the rotation were AR2274 through AR2279. The graph below shows the daily counts based on data reported by Spaceweather.com and the SILSO World Data Centre – Royal Observatory of Belgium.
There were several CMEs that produced a range of C1 and C4 class flares. On October 28th one CME had enough energy to produce M class flares while exhibiting a Beta-Gamma magnetic field.
On October 26th sunspot AR2778 appeared, initially spanning over 90,000 km. Within 24 hours it grew to 100,000 km in size. As reported by Solar observer Theo Ramakers in his rotation summary report, “Total Active Region Area for AR2776 was 420 millionths with the maximum daily area of 110 millionth on October 19th. AR2778 however, which developed much faster, accounted for 830 millionths for its short appearance in CR2236 of the Total Active Region Area for the Rotation of 2000 millionths.” For those interested in learning how to calculate the millionths of sunspots please reference the following article by Peter Meadows of the BAA available on the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System
Cycle 25 sunspot AR2776 also displayed an “Ellerman Bomb” on October 18th and was captured by both Theo Ramakers and Howard Eskildsen in images they submitted to the ALPO Solar Gallery. Per Wikipedia, an Ellerman Bomb involves “randomly moving filaments as two oppositely charged ion flows meet the Sun’s photosphere.” These are micro flares which are named after Ferdinand Ellerman who studied the Solar Blasts in the early 20th century. Great work by Howard and Theo capturing this event!
Ellerman Bomb Captured October 18
Images & Sketches can be found on the Solar ALPO image gallery for CR2236 from the following individuals:
Theo Ramakers
Howard Eskildsen
Frank J. Melillo
Guilherme Grassmann
Geert Vandenbuicke
Monty Leventhal (sketch)
David Teske (sketch)
