Blast from the Past II: The sunspot that turned out the lights in Quebec (Steve Lantz)

Contains: Solar system body or event

Blast from the Past II: The sunspot that turned out the lights in Quebec

Between the full moon and crummy weather, observing conditions have not improved since my last upload. So, just for fun I’m posting another blast from the past. The image shows the sun in partial eclipse on March 7, 1989; I took the photo with an AstroPhysics 5 inch apochromatic refractor using Kodak 2415 Tech Pan film. The extremely interesting feature is the spectacularly large sunspot group just rotating into view. On March 6, an X15 solar flare erupted from the sunspot. The stream of radiation and particles from this flare did not head towards earth, so we observed no effects. However, on March 10, when the sunspot was in a more central position on the solar disk, another large flare erupted from it, rated at X8. This time the flare was aimed at us! The subatomic particles began arriving at 1 a.m. EST on March 13 and precipitated massive auroras that lasted nearly two days and could be seen as far south as the Caribbean! The accompanying geomagnetic storm caused all kinds of problems, but of particular note was the effect on the power grid in the Canadian province of Quebec – at 2:45 a.m. EST much of Quebec went dark because the geomagnetic storm tripped the power grid breakers, resulting in a power outage that lasted for more than 9 hours!

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Blast from the Past II: The sunspot that turned out the lights in Quebec

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