The Dutch Observatory

Imaging in a Sauna?  After my “daily exercise” of fast walking 2 miles at a 4mph pace and observing at 85 degrees in 93% humidity.  That’s what today’s session was.  Solar Activity is very low and we have a spotless Sun again for Spotless day 909 since Solar Max. The last spotless day we had on May 7th.  However, the filaments still remain. So today’s images of the full disk and close ups of the plages and filaments left.  Please note that the Ha close up of the Southern Hemisphere filaments is a wider FOV than my normal close ups.

Clear skies this morning with average seeing.  SWPC reports in their noon discussion that AR2846 has decayed to a plage.  A few pores are still visible in the 540nm close up image.  AR2847 is stable and covers 10 millionths.  The filaments NE of AR2847 and East of AR2846 have changed a lot since my observations on July 25th.  Will they lift off before the region reaches the Western limb?

Solar Activity has become a lot lower today.  We see only 2 named Active Regions with solar spots, AR2846 (Cro) and AR2847 (Axx), but also a nice number of plages.  So todays images show full disk images of the solar disk  in the three wavelengths as well as close ups of the 2 named spots and some plages in Ha and CaK.

Six named Active Regions AR2842-45-46-47-48-49 as well as a plage from a previous named region AR2844 are visible on the Solar disk today.  It has been a long time ago that we had so many named regions on the visible disk of the Sun.  However the areas are very small as compared to during solar-high. None of the regions cover even 100 millionths of the Solar disk.  Anyway, full disk images as well as close ups of each of the regions.

Another morning with clear skies and average seeing!!  AR2942 has not shown much activity, as did the newly named region AR2844 near the SE limb.  AR2843 at the SW limb produced a B class flare but not much more.  A newly visible group in the Southern hemisphere just passed the Meridian and will be named today if it persists.  Today full disk images and close ups including from the newly visible group.

Started real early today and managed to just finish my CaK imaging when the clouds took over the sky. AR2842 remained stable over the last day.  AR 2843 developed some trailer spots and caused some flaring while it approaches the Western limb. Full disk images today and close ups of the mentioned regions as well as some images of unnamed but interesting regions.

Its been 5 days since my last observation.  We now have AR2842 (Hsx) and AR2843 (Axx).  The areas follow in rapid secessions. AR2838 through AR2841 were relatively short lived.  But AR2842 might still have some time to go, although it has been stable.  In addition, a nice prom was visible at the NW limb, although I forgot to image it.  Today full disk images and close ups of the mentioned regions.

I just had enough time before the clouds came to finish my imaging session.  The only spots visible in 540nm were those of AR2841 in the SE quadrant.  AR2839 has decayed to a plage.  I noticed a possible new area at the NE limb in the CaK close up of that region.  One more plage was visible in Ha and CaK in the SW quadrant.  Full disk images today as well as close ups of the mentioned regions.

Clear skies this morning with average seeing.  I had troubles posting yesterdays images in my Gallery and my blog.  This was too bad since we reached a milestone of recording the first X-Flare for Cycle 25.  I will catch up posting them as soon as the problems in the folder  CR2245 have been resolved.  Today we have three areas, AR2835, 37 and 39.  Today’s images of the full disk Sun as well as close ups of the mentioned regions.

The problems with posting  images on the 4th  have gone away on the 6th.  Probably heavy traffic on the web on the 4th.  Clear skies with relative good seeing.  We have reached a new milestone for the new Solar cycle. To the best of my recollection we now have had a  first type R2 and type R3 flare.  While turning to the backside of the Sun (it now is not visible anymore), AR2838 produced an X-1 flare, at 1429UT on the 3rd, as well as a pair of M-1 flares later on.  While this happened, AR2836 has decayed to a plage, but a new region has been named.  Region AR2839 popped up in the NW quadrant and has already produced a C1 flare. So, today images of the full disk as well as close ups of the mentioned regions, including the faculae that followed AR2838 at the NWLimb.