C-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: The corpse of decayed sunspot AR2770 erupted this morning, Aug. 15th at 0647 UT, producing a C2-class solar flare. A pulse of X-rays briefly ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere, causing a shortwave radio brownout over Asia, the Middle East, and eastern Africa: map. NOAA analysts are examining the event to see if it produced a CME. Stay tuned for updates.
ACTIVE STARSCAPE: "The sun is giving us 'astronuts' a good reason to get up, get outside and look up...," reports amateur astronomer Alan Friedman, who sends this portrait of an active starscape photographed from his backyard observatory in Buffalo, NY:
"A lovely large group of prominences is calling attention to the solar limb as a Solar Cycle 25 active region rotates on the face of the sun nearby," he says. "Beautiful and compelling stuff!"
That Solar Cycle 25 active region is AR2770, the corpse of a recently decayed sunspot. Proving that even sunspot corpses have vitality, this morning AR2770 produced a C2-class solar flare and a shortwave radio brownout over Asia.
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LIGHTNING DANCES ON THE EIFFEL TOWER: Lightning appears and vanishes again in mere milliseconds, which poses a thorny question for photographers: How do you catch the elusive bolts? Last week in Paris, photographer Bertrand Kulik managed it more than once:
"During a storm on Aug. 11th, I saw lightning strike the Eiffel tower once, twice, three times," says Kulik. "A rare moment, it was absolutely fantastic!"
"For catching these bolts I used my Canon EOS 5DMIII digita camera," he continues. "A lightning sensor made by Walt Laroche was in control of the shutter." The device uses an optical sensor to look for surges within a storm cloud. When the brightness starts to increase, heralding a lightning strike, the sensor triggers the camera. With a lag of only 1.6 microseconds, it freezes lightning in its tracks, making exposures relatively easy for photographers.
Even so, three bolts in one session is a lot. Says Kulik, "Soon, I hope to catch even more."
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ARCTIC WOLF PENDANT: This wolf glows in the dark--and it's been to space. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched this special pendant to the stratosphere on April 15, 2020, on board a high-altitude cosmic ray balloon. The payload of radiation sensors (and lupine jewelry) traveled 107,611 feet above Earth's surface:
You can have it for $99.95. The students are selling these pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the wolf in flight and describing its journey to the stratosphere and back again.
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