The Dutch Observatory

Clear skies again with average seeing.  We again have a spotless Sun today.  The current streak of spotless days since solar max. equals the highest streak so far in the transition from Cycle 24 to Cycle 25. We reached the same number of 25 days more than three months ago back in November, which is a far cry from the highest streak in the transition from Cycle 23 to 24, which was 52 days.  So we’ll keep counting and see what happens in the coming months. Please note that my data is based on the daily reports from NOAA’s SWPC.

The last two months we have had terrible observing conditions, but today we had a little break. A spotless Sun today which brings us to spotless day 404 since solar max. by using SWPC’s daily reports.  Some faculae are visible at the Western limb in 430nm as well as a plage in Ha and CaK.   Some very faint proms could also be seen at the NW limb.

Late observing today following an appointment in the early morning.  Clear skies with average seeing.  No sunspots today, but we did notice a small plage developing near the SW limb at 16 degrees South. As it turns out, this is  a reversed polarized (Cycle 25) plage. In addition a small reversed polarized area showed at a much lower latitude near the equator.   This follows the appearance over the last two days of a small reverse polarized area high up in the Northern hemisphere.  Will have to keep an eye on them.

In addition, a large but faint prom showed at the NW limb. Today full disk images as well as close ups of the reverse polarized areas.

Clouds were coming in and I ran out of time.  I did not have enough good data for an CaK image and the Ha was hurried and the scope was not tuned right.  But better something than nothing.  A new region is visible in the NE quadrant on spotless day 382 since solar maximum. Full disk images and close ups in Ha and WL of the mentioned region.