CHANCE OF MINOR STORMS THIS WEEK: NOAA forecasters say there is a chance of minor G1-class geomagnetic storms on Dec. 21st when a side-by-side pair of solar wind streams are expected to graze Earth's magnetic field. The gaseous material is flowing from a double hole in the sun's atmosphere. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
UNIQUE PHOTO OF A SOLAR PROMINENCE: This may be the only photo of its kind. On Dec. 13th, Jamie Shepherd of Lochearnhead, Scotland, photographed a solar prominence--without a solar telescope, without a solar eclipse, and without a coronagraph. All it took was the edge of a mountain:
"Around the winter solstice, if I step outside my front door, I can see the sun rising from behind a large rocky outcrop, the lower summit of Stùc a' Chròin," explains Shepherd. "It's just the right shape and distance to cover the sun, like my own solar eclipse, every Christmas."
"Other than a sunrise though, can any eclipse phenomena be seen? It's not easy to catch a clear sky at that time of day in December, but this year I was lucky. I took a burst of pictures with a hand-held telephoto just as the sun appeared. Amazingly, a pink prominence could be made out."
"Just to be sure," continues Shepherd, "I stacked the pictures in a sequence to show the prominence tracking to the right as the sun rose. Confirmation came from an Australian National Solar Observatory image just 10 minutes prior. I have added it below in the stack."
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SUNSPOT ARCHIPELAGO: Sunspots are islands of magnetism floating on the surface of the sun. Today there is an entire archipelago:
Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau photographed the island chain from Santa Fe, Argentina. "This is sunspot complex AR3169-AR3171," he says. "It just appeared over the sun's northeastern limb."
This is an active and photogenic sunspot group. It is crackling with C-class solar flares emanating from blast sites up and down its 200,000 km-long sprawl. These dimensions make AR3169-AR3171 an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. Don't have a solar filter? Try the projection method instead.
more images: from Thomas Jorgenson of Oro Valley, AZ
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