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Crackling with C-class solar
flares, a pair of active sunspots is emerging over the sun's northeastern limb today.
Our BRASSO SID Receiver recorded 3 flares yesterday afternoon just before
sunset. BRASSO Solar Graphs can be found here: http://sid.stanford.edu/database-browser/
Sunspot 1401 produced an
M1-flare on Jan. 14th. Two days earlier, while it was still on the farside of
the sun, sunspot 1402 produced a partially-eclipsed flare of uncertain
magnitude that created waves of ionization in the atmosphere over Europe.
To make these spots even more
interesting one needs to observe them with a Hydrogen Alpha filter. As the two
HUGE sunspots emerge over the limb they resemble a set of eyes. And to make it
even better there is a huge filament beneath them that looks like a huge
crescent, adding a smile beneath the eyes.
Imagine my surprise when I
looked in the scope today and saw this smiley face looking back at me.....
This is a composite of 3 images stitched together.
Scope: Lunt Solar Systems LS60THa w/ B1200CRF
Mount: Losmandy G-11 mounted in a Skyshed POD
Camera: Canon 40D using EOS MOV_REC capture
Each section utilized 4000 frames, Stacked in Registax v6
Image stitched and colorized in Adobe Photoshop CS5.1