Category: Sun

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please see our Solar Observing safety page at crayfordmanorastro.com/solar-safety/

On the morning of Sunday 15th January 2023, CMHASD member Honor Wheeler captured this absolutely stunning image of the Sun.  As you can see it was very active and still is!  Details of how Honor acquired her brilliant image are on the photo. 

The information below is taken from the website Spaceweather.com

Picture above shows the Sun on 15th January 2023 - taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory with the Sun spots labelled.

'''...I can't remember having seen so many sunspots together; indeed, the sunspot number is high. If solar activity continues at this pace for the rest of January, the monthly sunspot number will reach a 20-year high. And Solar Maximum is still ~2 years away. Contrary to predictions, Cycle 25 is shaping up to be a good one, after all.''

17th Jan 2023

''NAKED-EYE SUNSPOT: One of the biggest sunspots in years (AR3190) is crossing the solar disk--and you can see it with the naked eye. "Be sure to use safe solar glasses to protect your eyes," says Bum-Suk Yeom of Iksan, South Korea. "I tried it myself today, and I could see the sunspot clearly." 

As shown in Yeom's infographic, the sunspot is four times wider than Earth. It's twice as big as any other spot on the sun, visible to the naked eye, and a magnificent target for backyard solar telescopes.

Best of all, it's about to explode. AR3190 has an unstable 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares. Any eruptuions will be geoeffective because the sunspot is almost directly facing Earth.'' ''

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

On the morning of the 26th August 2022 member Simon Dawes imaged 3 of the sunspots on the sun - AR3086. AR3088 and AR3089 and superb images they are too.  Sunspot AR3088 however looked a little bit different from the usual sunspots seen and indeed it was according to Spaceweather.com - see below.

Details of how Simon acquired the images are on each photo.

Unusual sunspot AR3088

Screen shot from Spaceweather.com explaining why sunspot AR3088 looks unusual....

https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=25&month=08&year=2022

Sunspot AR3089

Sunspot AR3086

Our sun on the 22nd Aug 2022 imaged by member Simon Dawes. Despite seeing being very poor that morning; a great image was achieved by Simon showing an active sun. Details of how Simon acquired the images are on the main photo.

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

Sunspot AR3085

Sunspot AR3081

More super images of the Sun by member Simon Dawes taken on the 15th July 2022 showing the Sun speckled with sunspots.  Details of how Simon took the images are on the pictures.

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

Whist waiting for the Moon to rise on the 13th July 2022 members Honor Wheeler and Jim Burchell photographed the Sun as it set with just their cameras.  When they looked at their images they saw that they had captured some of the massive sunspots on the Sun that day too in their photos.  In both images you can see sunspot AR3055 bottom middle right and sunspot AR3057 top left on the Sun.  In Honor's image you can also see Sunspot AR3053 middle right too.

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

Honor Wheeler's image

Jim Burchell's image

Member Simon Dawes imaged our Sun on the morning of the 11th July 2022 and as you can see the Sun is very active.  Details of how Simon acquired the images are on the photos.

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

Sunspot AR3053

Sunspot AR3055 - stretching more than 100,000 km from end to end with more than a dozen dark cores.  Simon said 'AR3055 its seems to be getting longer as I couldn't get it in the frame so had to do a composite.'

Sunspot AR3056

New Sunspot - this new active region was just peeping round the limb of the Sun on the 11th July. Now Sunspot AR3057

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Simon modified a cheap, old and unused telescope with significant chromatic aberration into a super high resolution Solar telescope, his video below explains how he did it. 

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1395"] Image taken with Simon's hi-res Solar Telescope.[/caption]

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Member Simon Dawes captured some superb images of the Sun this morning. The Sun is quite active at the moment with several sunspots.

Details of how Simon took the images are on the photos.

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

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NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

My Skywatcher 190MN telescope has a very wide field of view I can easily fit the full Moon or Sun on the chip, so I thought I'd get myself some Baader solar Safety Film and make myself a solar filter - the video below shows how i made it and shows some early results. Check-out our solar section for more images.

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The Sun on the 14th May 2022 taken by member & trustee Simon Dawes. 

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.