Sunday 27 January 2013

A Quiet Sun? 27th January 2013


It is being written in some places on the web that our star is inactive and there is little to see, well, I guess this depends just how close you look. 

Despite there only being a couple of named active regions in this photo, when you look closely there are several, as yet, unnamed active regions.  The large single spot is fairly inactive and displays a classic light bridge dividing it in two, indicating that it is dying or decaying.  Several small filaments can be seen draping the solar disk.  The image was taken with my recently modified 70mm f6 workhorse scope, this today was running at f15, and these images show that despite suffering from less than ideal conditions for imaging today, this scope seems to strike a great balance between regular use in the battle against poor seeing, and getting a decent level of resolution.