The Dutch Observatory

May 5th we retrieved the pinhole camera from East Newton Elementary School.  Everyone was excited to find out what the camera had recorded between February 1st and May 5th.  Here is the result.  One can nicely see the path of the Sun through the sky, the sunny and cloudy days, as well as some scattered clouds.  The period started off with a period of clouds.  (See lower dark end of arcs at right).  Thanks to Mrs. Thompson for arranging for us to bring this project to her school.

Clear skies with great seeing for most of my observing session.  The Sun is becoming a lot more active compared to a few days ago.  18 Flares with several M-Class flares and even an X2.7, a count of 45 spots with a total area of 370 millionth.  Today a full disk image with the super large filament and a close up of AR2335 and 2338 in continuum filtered white light.

Another nice day with a broken cloud deck.  The seeing was relative good and the sun looks great with that large filament stretching across.  Today the Sun shows 4 active regions with a total of 27 spots covering 300 millionth.  The Sun also produced 11 C-class flares of which one was a C8 flare.  Today again a full disk image and a close up of AR2335.

A Clear Sky Sunday morning.  The Sun became more active a bit and AR2335 contains now 15 spots covering an area of 220 millionth and released 5 C-class flares in the last day.  Also the huge filament stretching almost across the Sun is beautiful.  Today a full disk image that nicely shows the filament(s) and a close up of AR2335 and one of the filaments.

Saturday May 2nd was Solar Outreach day at Anna Ruby Falls in Helen GA.  A great event, but I did have the time to make one image of the Sun.  The Sun has been very quiet in the last two days with only one C-class flare.  Today we had only one active region AR2335 with three small sunspots with a total size of 70 millionth.  However, the filament that is stretching across the surface of the Sun makes up for the lack of regions, spots and flares.  It is beautiful and knowing that the diameter of the Sun is 865,000 miles, one can easily imagine how large they are.  Today a full disk image of the Sun with AR2335.

The end of the school year nears and the students still need to see the result of what the pinhole camera captured to really see the path of the Sun throughout the year.  The first school I retrieved the pinhole camera from was the Theme School at Ficquett in Covington.  The pinhole camera recorded the path of the Sun from January 19th until today May 1st.  The image shows nicely the arcs of the Sun and recorded the sunny days, and hours, as well as the cloudy and rainy once.  In addition, one can see nicely the surrounding buildings as well as the Newton County Schools Administration Building.   Thanks to Mrs. Tamburro and the Staff at the Theme School for letting us help to bring this program to their Students.