Well, that was the headline in Newsweek on 9/13/22! Indeed, on 9/16/22, the morning after I took this image, a solar flare from AR3098 knocked out radio in Africa and the Middle East. Though I didn´t notice anything here in Spain!
Sunspots are dark, planet-size regions of strong magnetic fields on the surface of the sun. They spawn solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Sunspots appear darker because they are cooler than their surroundings. The central dark region, the umbra, is about 6,300 degrees 3,500 degrees Celsius, whereas the surrounding photosphere is about 5,500 C,
This is a white light image of AR3098 imaged using a 14¨ Dobson and a 3 X Barlow with Bader solar film as an off-axis filter. Although the image contains less detail in the umbra and penumbral regions than my previous images, I really like the fine crevice like structure in the surrounding area of the photosphere.
40% of 10,000 frames stacked in AS. Sharpened in Registax and IMPP. Colorized in Photoshop
Links
A massive solar flare knocked out radio in Africa and Middle East Friday | SpaceMonster Sunspot Sends Huge Solar Flare Barrelling Toward Earth (newsweek.com)
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