The Dutch Observatory

The sky was very calm this morning with great transparency until the clouds started rolling in! I managed to capture another great shot of the largest spot in AR2192.  AR2192 has shrunk to 2380 today and the next two days will be clouds, so transparency will not be good.  After that the region will have “turned around the corner.”

Today AR2192 caused another X2.0 flare.  I noticed it when I checked the SM40 after finishing the visible light imaging, so I caught the end of the flare.  Today the sky was much more stable with relative good seeing, so I captured an image “Inside of the largest spot of AR2192″  The large filament in the northern hemisphere is beautiful.  AR2192 is growing again, today its at 2750 millionth.

Yesterday the seeing was great compared to today, so today’s visible light image is not very sharp, but the contours of the spot still look great. This is a prime focus image with the C11 and a WL and continuum filter.

AR2192 produced an X1.0 and an X3.2 flare in the last 24 hours.  Its size has also increased a little to 2570 again.  It seems it does not want to give up yet.  Pretty soon it will be disappearing behind the Western limb and we will have to wait until it comes around again

This is how the region looks through my C11 with a Baader Photo filter and a continuum filter.  This image has been taken with a 0.6x focal reducer in front of the camera in direct focus.

I guess the Sun was waiting for the Solar eclipse to max out AR2192 as it reached 2740 on the 24th.  Today its size went down to 2510, but it produced a X3.2 flare last evening.  The Sun was too low for imaging from my site.  Here a full disk and close up if AR2192 on the 25th.

AR2192 has reached a size of 2700 millionth.  Way bigger than what I’ve seen in the last few years.  The area contains a total of around 55 sunspots (large and small).  This can become a very nice setting for the partial solar eclipse if the weather helps a little tomorrow.

Today AR2192 has increased to a size of 2410.  While I was imaging it produced an X1.6 flare which was directed somewhere around Brazil.  I guess I was lucky as I caught the flare while it as at maximum.  Here an Ha closeup of the action.

I’ve been watching AR2192 as it grew bigger than AR1944 in January.  Over night it grew from 1560 to 2180 millionth.  The Sun spot is huge and producing C and M class flares.  Here a Ha close up under medium seeing conditions.