2010 08 07, Solar NOAAs 11093, 11092, 11095
2010 August 7, 16:15 UT – 1920 UT Solar NOAAs 11093, 11092, 11095
PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA – Erika Rix
ETX70-AT w/tilt plate, DS Maxscope 60mm w/LXD 75, 21-7mm Zhumell
H-alpha sketch created scopeside with black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil. White light sketch created scopeside with copypaper and #2 pencil.
It was every easy to see three active regions in h-alpha with the disturbed looking sections of the solar disk including plage and filaments. 11093 and 11093 both had a very obvious sunspot within them. By the time I set up for white light observing, the sky had become so overcast that I was only able to observe those two sunspots long enough for placement on my paper. I’ve always enjoyed the sharp details in sunspots with a white light filter, so it was disappointing that the clouds came in and would have been nice to see if there were more little sunspots or faculae to be seen.
The large prominence on the NE limb gave me fits to render at the beginning of the session. Transparency made it nearly impossible to pull out details. It was so soft looking that I decided to pull out a larger sheet of black paper and work on the solar disk in h-alpha instead. Seems it was the right decision because an hour or so later, the prominence was very sharp and the sketch went quickly. Very faint areas of it extended out to the north and south, reaching far beyond the first views. I was unable to see these areas until I covered my head with the solar cloth to block out excess light. Even with the black paper, those areas were so faint that my eyes had to adjust after each marking was added to the sketch.
A tutorial for sketching prominences can be found here: Prominence Sketching
For more information and images from other solar observers around the world, please have a look at today’s Spaceweather page. Spaceweather
Excerpt from Spaceweather page…
M-FLARE: At 1825 UT on August 7th, Earth-orbiting satellites detected a long-duration M1-class solar flare. The source of the blast was sunspot 1093. Several amateur astronomers caught the active region in mid-flare. First-look data confirm that the blast produced a CME, but the cloud is not heading directly toward Earth. A glancing blow to our magnetic field on August 9th or 10th might produce auroras, but this does not appear to herald a major space weather event at Earth. Stay tuned for updates.
PCW Memorial Observatory - Erika Rix 