The Dutch Observatory

The skies were clearing up during my observing session. SWPC carried AR2755 over into today, however at the time of observing the spot was not visible.  We have a new region coming around the Eastern limb, which might have a pore or small spot. According to my measurements in WinJupos, this area is in the Southern hemisphere and its magnetogram shows an old Cycle 24 polarization. However there is a very small reverse polarized area in the NE quadrant, which is visible also in the CaK image. A faculae is visible in the WL image, and a nice plage in Ha and CaK.  The filaments South of the AR2755 plage show very nice and show some activity.  Compare to yesterday’s images. Yesterday’s Prom in the SW is gone, but we have some small proms in the NE and SE.

Well I was wrong, SWPC did see the spot yesterday and carried it for another day.  So yesterday was not a spotless day.  I was not able to make out the spot today, so we’ll see what happens.  Anyway, I made some close ups in Ha and Cak.  Two of the Ha close ups have been made with the ASI120MM and a 2x barlow.  The other with the ASI174MM and a 3x.

Clear skies this morning.  The Sun seems to be spotless again.  AR2755 looks like it decayed to a plage.  In addition, we see some filaments to the East of the area, as well as in the NE.  A nice prom extends from the SW limb in Ha and some smaller from the NW and SE limbs.

I didn’t expect to image today, but just before our roof would cast its shadow on the location from where I image, a few smaller holes in the fast moving clouds showed up, allowing me one image with the SVC80. And now it rains again….. It looks like we still have one area with one spot. I wonder if this still will be there by tomorrow.

Cloudy and rain for a few days, so today is a makeup day.  This is my 1700th blog discussing astronomy.  Today’s topic is the reversed polarized area that popped up January 1st and in the meantime has been named AR2755.  This is nice, we have a new region on the first day of the first year of the decade during solar minimum. This area is also reverse polarized, making it consistent to a Cycle 25 area.   Since I took the time Wednesday to make close ups of the WL and Ha images, I put together a composite showing three images of the area together with an SDO HMIB magnetogram image to document this event .  Apologies for the quality caused by many issues, starting with a jet stream with wind sheers of 100 miles/hour above.

My first session of the year and decade.  Clear skies with some clouds and below average seeing.  We seem to have a new pore, or area that came around the Eastern limb.  Its location is at a latitude of -35.5 degrees and a longitude of 354.5 degrees.  And guess what?  This one has again reverse polarization.  It was not named in SWPC’s midday discussion, so we’ll see if it makes it as a named active region. A few filaments  and some plages could be observed in CaK, as well as some faint and small proms.  My images today include a close up of the region with two different cameras, a 3x magnification with the ASI174MM and a 2x magnification with the ASI120MM.

The last day of the year and the sky is clear!  Seeing however is not as good, caused by wind sheer with the 110 miles/hour winds in the jet stream.  Since we have another spotless day, I imaged today the remaining plage of what used to be AR2753, which is slowly approaching the western limb.  This is spotless day 646 since Solar maximum.

After 5 days of clouds, the Sun is out again.  However no spots.  The plage from AR2754 has turned to the far side, but we still can see the plage from AR2753.  Today full disk images in the three wavelengths as well as a close up of the remnant of AR2753.

Clear skies on Christmas day, but the seeing is not very good.  The second area I mentioned yesterday has now been named AR2754, so we have two active regions on the Sun today for a total Active Region Area of 20 millionths. We also have a few proms in the NE and NW as well as filaments in the NE, NW and SW quadrants. Having some Sunspots  is great for the other side of Earth where they will have an annular eclipse tomorrow.  Can’t wait to see the images of the Ring of Fire!  Today’s images include the full disk images in the three wavelengths as well as close ups of the regions.

Finally the clouds gave way to clear skies.  And guess what?  We have a new Active Region.  AR2753 was named  this morning.  In addition, we do have a some pores visible in the NW quadrant, which might also make it into spots.  We’ll have to see what happens.  To top it off, both areas are reverse polarized, making them consistent to C25 polarized areas.  So the spotless streak made it to 40 days, or 41 if one marks the days at 0000 UT.