Series of solar photographs from July 6 through July 8, 2012

[mkk707]

Here is a series of pictures of the sun shot on three consecutive days from July 6, through July 8, 2012. The big sunspot 1515 is moving towards the limb but instead, 1520 is now marching across the face of the Sun. 1515 has been the origin of a series of M-class flares and one X-class flare in the past days.

http://bit.ly/OlgMAZ

I had to be real quick to catch the Sun through holes in the clouds on all three days.

Telescope: ED apochromatric refractor, focal length 420 mm, aperture 70 mm
Filter: D5 sun observation foil by Baader Planetarium (D5 means that it reduces the intensity of the sunlight by five orders of magnitude, i.e, 99.999%)
Camera: Canon EOS 1000D, unmodified

Greetings from Germany and CS

Michael

[mkk707]

Here's another one: The Sun on 9 July 2012, around 09:30 CEDT (just before the clouds rolled in):

http://bit.ly/LYAAwR

Sunspot 1515 is out of sight, sunspot 1520 really fat.

Telescope: Maksutov Cassegrain, Aperture 102 mm, focal length 1300 mm
Filter: D5 solar observation foil by Baader Planetarium
Camera: Canon EOS 1000D, unmodified.

Greetings from Germany and CS

Michael

[mkk707]

Here is the Sun on Tuesday, July 10, around 9:00 CEDT.

http://bit.ly/NgdqSs

Amazing how the prominent region 1520 has spread out and spawned (for lack of a better word) smaller spots.

Telescope: Maksutov Cassegrain, Aperture 102 mm, focal length 1300 mm
Filter: D5 solar observation foil by Baader Planetarium
Camera: Canon EOS 1000D, unmodified.

Greetings from Germany and CS

Michael

[LookingSkyward]

Cool, mkk707! Thanks for sharing these!

[mkk707]

We didn't have any luck with the clouds on Wednesday, but today, Thursday, 12. July 2012, around 8:30 a.m., a patch of blue sky moved through - just 5 minutes or so, but that was enough to catch the sun:

http://bit.ly/LhmA1W

Fat sunspot 1520 is continuing its march across the visible disc. We even wanted to do a close-up using a Televue PowerMate 2.5 x magnifying lens. But as we were inserting that betwen scope and camera, the clouds rolled back in and we had to give up. better luck next time.

Telescope: Maksutov Cassegrain, Aperture 102 mm, focal length 1300 mm
Filter: D5 solar observation foil by Baader Planetarium
Camera: Canon EOS 1000D, unmodified.

Greetings from Germany and CS

Michael

PS: Does anyone have a convincing theory on why there are no further sunspots following 1520? The disc is completely spotless all the way to the left limb. For almost two weeks now, the solar surface has been churning and roiling, what with the behemoth 1515 and then 1520, one of the largest spots in years ... the sudden uncanny lull feels a bit creepy!

[LookingSkyward]

Nice!

[mkk707]

After a rainy weekend, today, Monday July 16, I can finally take a picture of the Sun again. As we now know, sunspot 1520 exploded into action at 16:53 GMT last Thursday, just hours after I imaged it (I hope there is no connection between those two facts) in form of a class X1.4 flare. On Saturday evening, two days after the eruption, a solar storm broke as the charged particle from that flare encountered the Earth's magnetic field.

http://bit.ly/M2QFzf

Giant sunspot region 1520 is now approaching the edge of the Sun. Remarkably, the Sun appears to be all but clear of sunspots to the West now. Around the area of 1520, there appears to be some considerable dynamics in the photosphere.

Telescope: ED apochromatric refractor, focal length 420 mm, aperture 70 mm
Filter: D5 sun observation foil by Baader Planetarium (D5 means that it reduces the intensity of the sunlight by five orders of magnitude, i.e, 99.999%)
Camera: Canon EOS 1000D, unmodified

Greetings from Germany and CS

Michael