And here's a page for finding stuff about the current sun conditions.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/
...and the service for space weather advisories.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
Posted on 07/07/2009 2:29:50 PM PDT by Squidpup
ASTRONOMERS are claiming that Earth is witnessing the biggest and most powerful Sunspot ever seen and the sunspot is yet to peak in intensity.
A sunspot is a magnetic storm on the surface of the sun and the area of the spot is colder than the normal surface.
The normal surface is about 5000 degrees, the temperature of a sunspot is about 3000 degrees.
The size of a sunspot varies, ranging from the size of the moon to 65 times larger than the size of earth and lasts for about a month then fades away.
This newest sunspot is thought to be 60 to 80 times the size of Earth and has occurred on the side of the sun, which is in view of Australia.
Wappa Falls Observatory head astronomer Owen Bennedick describes the sunspot shape like the letter S and thinks it to be approximately 150,000 km long and 30,000 km wide.
“It's flares have not yet been measured,” Owen Bennedick said, “but it is like hundreds of thousands of hydrogen bombs.”
The flares have been so bright that NASA has had trouble taking accurate pictures of the sunspot.
Mr Bennedick said the sunspot is still growing in intensity but predicts it could climax by today.
The sunspot will cause the Earth's atmosphere to heat up, potentially creating problems to powerlines, radio transmitters and delicate equipment such as mobile phones and computers.
Mr Bennedick suggests powerline filters be installed on computers and people should put on extra sunscreen.
Sunspots appear on the sun in cycles, occurring every 11 years, the current cycle has four years until it reaches it peak.
The last sunspot happened two years ago and was the most powerful flare yet measuring x28.
Most sunspot flares measure around x12 which is still considered powerful.
The Sunspot two years ago was 45 times larger than the earth and lasted for 45 days.
Since that sunspot, no more had been seen until Sunday, this latest one considered the most powerful yet.
The Wappa Falls Observatory is in the process of installing a new 12 inch telescope which will allow a greater view of the sky.
The new telescope was bought in honour of Kerry Mounter who recently passed away.
Mr Mounter was an inspiration to all who worked at the Wappa Falls Observatory. The telescope will be dedicated to his memory.
So they say. HA!
When I was stationed in Teheran, we had a solar observatory on the grounds of our HF receivers site so we would know when the sun’s activity was about to destroy the HF communications links with Asmara and Scwetzengen. We could go very low in our frequencies to avoid some of the interference but not all of it.
I have seen far larger sun spots during the two years I was there than this thing.
Cash only, of course.
Somebody must be smokin’ some good weed ‘cause the only one up there is 1024 and it’s fading away.
The side of the sun that is in view of Australia is called "dinkumwally yop-yop" by the locals down under.
A plume of fire will stretch 93 million miles to Mecca, and Obama’s eyes will glow with fire. Then you will know that the end of the world is at hand.
Coinciding with the myth-makers "man-made" cause of a warming trend, scientists find the last 100 years witnessed major changes in the suns magnetic field (stronger by 230% than in 1901); and sunspot activity in the last cycle was greater than anything recorded in history.
If the sun, and its cycles and how its cycles affect every planet in the solar system, and not man-made CO2, WAS NOT the lead cause of "global warming" at this particular period of time, then how is earth-bound man-made CO2 the simultaneous cause of "global warming" (higher energy readings) evidenced on Mars, Neptune and its moons and even Uranus (higher luminoscity) and Pluto.
CO2, from nature or otherwise CANNOT create/produce - provide PRIMARY CAUSE FOR - a global earth warming or cooling trend. Only the Earth's primary source of heat, the Sun, can do that. The minimal "CO2" "green house" affect is always at the margins of global atmospheric temperature trends and cycles; trends and cycles vastly beyond its own ability to produce.
CO2 science is unhappily at a point where many non-scientific so-called scientists operate on the upside down, wrong headed maxim that correlation equals causation (it never does).
I haven’t had any of my rigs hooked up for the past 8 years.
And the old memory just isn’t what it used to be..
I spent most of my time on 6 meter sideband..mostly contests or just jawin’ with friends.
:0)
Very nice pics of M13 and M42! I'll guess that you have a Meade SCT? I worked at Celestron many years ago, and have owned a handful of different Celestron scopes. Right now I have a homemade 14.5" F5.5 Newtonian, optimized for planetary viewing... curved vane spider, 2.1" secondary & a very low profile focuser. It's on a Dobsonian mount (sono-tube) and an equatorial platform. Unfortunately it's just not rigged at all for photography. I'd have to move the mirror forward about 4-6 inches to get it to focus a camera. (Range of focus is one of the beautiful things about SCT scopes)
Where do you do your observing?
Bravo Sierra
What is this x12 stuff and the side of the sun that is visible from Australia? Call it a hunch, but I don’t think that this author got beyond third-grade science.
"Many readers are writing to ask if this sunspot is going to produce a major solar storm today, July 7th. Such a storm was "predicted" by a set of crop circles in England, and the solar blogosphere has been abuzz with speculation. The answer is "no." A major storm is not in the offing. Sunspot 1024 is relatively large, but it does not have the kind of complex magnetic field that poses a threat for major eruptions. Crop circles, it turns out, are not a useful tool for forecasting solar activity."
My 6m rig is sitting quietly in the basement. I hope to enjoy it someday...when the sunspots perk up again. I packed my VX-6 handheld for the San Diego trip. Too bad the battery died again. At $70 each, I'm not enjoying the radio very much. My wife and I purchased a pair of them to use at Yellowstone National Park. Just enough time elapsed between the purchase and our first trip to the park for the batteries to fail in both radios. Very frustrating. The old IC-2AT still works. I should have taken it instead.
Rotflol!
(I actually did laugh out loud.) Thanks.
Apparently Australia is not only on the other side of the earth, but is on the other side of the solar system.
On those shots I used an Astronomik light pollution filter with a Canon 40D, shooting raw, images were calibrated, stacked, combined and processed with DSS and PSCS3
No solar filters at this point, but expect to have one in the future.
It is all our faults!! Oh-Em-Gee!!!
Breath less.
Mostly I do it at my home about an hour west of the twin cities. Its in a yellow area on the dark sky map. Occasionally (especially in the autumn when I'm out there for hunting season) I'll set up out in western Minnesota where I've got a good dark sky site with power. Its in a blue area on the dark sky map.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.