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Post by Sowelu on Dec 18, 2009 23:11:13 GMT -5
GREAT SUNSPOT: Sunspot 1035 is putting on a good show. There are two planet-sized cores connected by sinuous magnetic filaments more than 100,000 km long, all surrounded by a seething froth of hot plasma. "It's great," says Paul Haese, who sends this picture from his backyard observatory in Blackwood, Australia:  "This is the best spot of the new solar cycle so far," he says. "I photographed it this morning using a Coronado Solarmax 60."
On Dec. 16th, magnetic fields around the sunspot erupted and hurled a coronal mass ejection toward Earth. The billion-ton cloud is still en route. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras when it arrives on Dec. 18th or 19th.
more images: from Matt Wastell of Paddington, Brisbane, Australia; from Pete Lawrence of Selsey, West Sussex, UK; from Fulvio Mete of Rome, Italy; from Richard Best of Lewes, Sussex, England; from A. Berry and J. Stetson of South Portland,Maine; from John C McConnell of Maghaberry Northern Ireland; from Karzaman Ahmad of Langkawi National Observatory, Malaysia
www.spaceweather.com/
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