Solar Section        

May 31, 2010

Sunspot Summary Carrington Rotation 2096 – Howard Eskildsen

Sunspot Summary Carrington Rotation 2096
Start date: 2010/04/22, 18:15 UT, End date: 2010/05/19, 23:50 UT, per http:bass2000.obspm.fr/ephem.php?lang=en

Notes: The Sun had been without spots for 8 days at the start of this rotation, and except for a pore was blank for its first 5 days.
Over the next 11 days there were 8 small spots and a single blank day. The final 11 days were again without spots, and solar activity
continued at a very low level.

Dates below expressed as yymmdd (Universal Date)
Sunspot Location Date Date
Number First Seen Appeared Last seen Comments
Pore NE Quadrant 100427 100427 Pore in fresh plage. Lasted less than one day.
1063 NE Quadrant 100428 100428 Appeared SE of plage associated with yesterday’s pore and GONG
Reappeared 100503 100505 magnetograms reveal it to be in a magnetic region distinct from yesterday’s pore. Faded from view on 100429, reappeared on 100503 and rotated from view on 100505.
1064 NE Quadrant 100430 100502 Bipolar spot per SpaceWeather.com when it first appeared. I was not able to observe it until the next day and only a single spot remained which faded from view later.
1065 SW Quadrant 100503 100504 I could not see spots on my photos, but NOAA listed it.
1066 Southern 100503 100504 Small, short-lived spot
1067 NE Limb 100501 100506 Rotated into view with at least 2 small spots but not numbered for 2 days. Faded from view by 100507
1068 SE Quadrant 100503 100504 Rotated into view, short lived, faded from view next day
1069 NW Quadrant 100504 100508Small little spot eventually rotated out of view
1070 Northern 100506 100506 I was unable to observe on the only day it was visible.

April 22, 2010

Solar Dynamics Observatory

The Sun performs for SDO – AIA
Soon after the instruments opened their doors, the Sun began performing for SDO with this beautiful prominence eruption. This AIA data is from March 30, 2010, showing a wavelength band that is centered around 304 Å. This extreme ultraviolet emission line is from singly ionized Helium, or He II, and corresponds to a temperature of approx. 50,000 degrees Celsius. The second movie shows a prominence with larger field of view.

Solar observing in more detail…..stay tuned.

March 7, 2010

CR2093 Rotation by Howard Eskildsen

Historic CR 2093 completed its cycle with spots present every day of the rotation.  I started writing my CR reports with CR 2060 in August, 2007, and this is the first report I have done that did not have a spot-free day.  Cycle 24 has arrived, yet strangely, there was a solitary Cycle 23 spot during this rotation.
Regards,
Howard
 

CR2093

http:bass2000.obspm.fr/ephem.php?lang=en.  Photo Data: North up, East left, Date: yymmdd, hh:mm universal time

February 11, 2010

NASA successfully launches a new eye on the Sun

Excellent News, the sun will never look the same again.

Kim

Feb. 11, 2010

Dwayne C. Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Don Savage
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-8982
donald.savage@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 10-040

NASA SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHES A NEW EYE ON THE SUN

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO,
lifted off Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch
Complex 41 on a first-of-a-kind mission to reveal the sun’s inner
workings in unprecedented detail. The launch aboard an Atlas V rocket
occurred at 10:23 a.m. EST.

The most technologically advanced of NASA’s heliophysics spacecraft,
SDO will take images of the sun every 0.75 seconds and daily send
back about 1.5 terabytes of data to Earth — the equivalent of
streaming 380 full-length movies.

“This is going to be sensational,” said Richard R. Fisher, director of
the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “SDO is
going to make a huge step forward in our understanding of the sun and
its effects on life and society.”

The sun’s dynamic processes affect everyone and everything on Earth.
SDO will explore activity on the sun that can disable satellites,
cause power grid failures, and disrupt GPS communications. SDO also
will provide a better understanding of the role the sun plays in
Earth’s atmospheric chemistry and climate.

SDO is the crown jewel in a fleet of NASA missions to study our sun.
The mission is the cornerstone of a NASA science program called
Living With A Star. This program will provide new understanding and
information concerning the sun and solar system that directly affect
Earth, its inhabitants and technology.

The SDO project is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md. NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center
managed the payload integration and launch.

For launch coverage, briefing materials, and multimedia, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/briefing-materials-20100209.html

For more information about the SDO mission, visit:

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov
and
http://www.nasa.gov/sdo

February 7, 2010

AR1045 is starting to come alive

The new sunspot group AR1045 is starting to grow quickly. Yesterday Feb 6 at 18:59 UTC, the spot erupted with a M2.97 solar flare. Later on Feb 7 at 2:34 UTC the same spot erupted with a M6.4 solar flare. This area is becoming quite active. These Solar flare reports were issued by Solar Terrestrial Dispatch

AR1043 and AR1044 are exiting off the western limb, yet yesterday I could not see the spots in white light, but they did show up on h-Alpha on my SM60.

Kim

February 2, 2010

CR2092 Compilation by Howard Eskildsen

Here is the Carrington Rotation CR2092 by Howard Eskildsen

Sun taken in CaK - Jan 3, 2010 at 11:46 UT to January 30, 2010 at 19:56 UT

January 10, 2010

Solar Prominences

Micheal Buxton has created a loop of a Solar Prominence from October 3th, 2009

Details on the equipment used are :”This time lapse movie was captured from 1710-1855 UT on 3 october 2009 with a tak TSA 102 and a lunt 75mm hydrogen filter. video clips of 350 frames were gathered with a DMK ccd and processed with registax. the clip is looped 5 times and played here at 20fps. “mb

Go to to see Mike’s other events on the Youtube page.

Thanks for sharing Mike.

Kim