The year 2014 started off with a discovery of a giant sunspot group later named AR1944. NASA stated that the group was one of the largest seen in the last nine years.
Out of pure coincidence, I managed to capture an image of the group on 5th Jan and I repeated the exercise today after learning that I caught an image of a fairly important activity. The two images are shown above side-by-side for comparison. (The "cutoff" of the solar disc is not due to a bad crop. The Sun is too large to be photographed via a NexStar4SE and a 550D without a focal reducer, it is just just a little bit larger than the CCD).
At the time, predictions were on that there could be a massive solar flare, heightened aurora activity and a disruption to electronics including satellite communication and navigation systems. On 7th January, an X class solar flare erupted and reached Earth around 9th and 10th. Although there are no reports of communication disruptions, everybody is expecting the aurora reports and photos to come in on the next few days. While there was a worry that the sunspots in the AR1944 group would merge and give rise to a super massive sunspot; luckily there is no evidence of an imminent threat of that and the spots have seemed to stopped growing in size.
Just in case you were wondering what's the big deal and how big these things really are check out this image from NASA:
And if you are interested in the solar flare that erupted on 7th of Jan, checkout the video at space.com: http://www.space.com/24201-sun-unleashes-major-solar-flare-video.html
Out of pure coincidence, I managed to capture an image of the group on 5th Jan and I repeated the exercise today after learning that I caught an image of a fairly important activity. The two images are shown above side-by-side for comparison. (The "cutoff" of the solar disc is not due to a bad crop. The Sun is too large to be photographed via a NexStar4SE and a 550D without a focal reducer, it is just just a little bit larger than the CCD).
At the time, predictions were on that there could be a massive solar flare, heightened aurora activity and a disruption to electronics including satellite communication and navigation systems. On 7th January, an X class solar flare erupted and reached Earth around 9th and 10th. Although there are no reports of communication disruptions, everybody is expecting the aurora reports and photos to come in on the next few days. While there was a worry that the sunspots in the AR1944 group would merge and give rise to a super massive sunspot; luckily there is no evidence of an imminent threat of that and the spots have seemed to stopped growing in size.
Just in case you were wondering what's the big deal and how big these things really are check out this image from NASA:
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| AR1944 sunspot group with apprx size of Earth. - Image courtesy of NASA |
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| Side by side comparison from images from SOHO lab. |
And if you are interested in the solar flare that erupted on 7th of Jan, checkout the video at space.com: http://www.space.com/24201-sun-unleashes-major-solar-flare-video.html
Clearly, we need more incentives to quickly increase the use of wind and solar power; they will cut costs, increase our energy independence and our national security and reduce the consequences of global warming.
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