PCW Memorial Observatory – Erika Rix

With five active regions, the Sun made quite an appearance today in spite of the limb. There were a few decent prominences, especially to the eastern hemisphere. My favorite view, though, were magnetic fields surrounding 1471 made apparent by the very thin active region filaments (ARFs). They reached down like fingers from the sunspots in that region. Plage was very intricate and meshed into what I believe was AR 1472.

The quiet region filaments (QRFs) were in abundance in the southern northern hemisphere with a few speckled to the south. AR 1474 seemed a bit washed out with plage and faint darkened areas. There was only slight plage definition and no sunspots observed in h-alpha. I didn’t set up a white light filter today for comparison.

1473 and 1469 were blended together by the plage and many lines of ARFs, including filaments reaching out over the edge for short, bright prominences. Plage was very bright, forming the shape of a tuning fork in 1469. These were impressive sets of active regions when paired up.

This was my first solar observing session since moving to Texas about two and a half weeks ago. With all that took place in preparing the old house for sale and the move to Texas, I’ve been deprived of any observing other than naked eye. It was a relief to be behind an eyepiece once again.

Sketches created scope-side with black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.

~ by Erika Rix on May 4, 2012.

Posted in Solar Observations, Solar Observations 2012
Tags: 1469, 1471, 1472, 1473, 1474, active regions, filaments, H-alpha, NOAA, prominences, solar sketches, Sun, sunspots