Sunspot 2824 of Solar Cycle 25.

This currently active sunspot unleashed a flurry of solar flares yesterday. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory identified 9 C-class flares and 2 M-class flares in just 24 hours. M-class flares are 10 times stronger than C-class flares. These hurled multiple overlapping CME’s (Coronal Mass Ejections) into space yesterday. None are squarely earth directed however we may get a glancing blow from May 26th, and with any luck there may be aurora. During yesterday’s series of flares from this sunspot, a shortwave radio burst was so loud that it drowned out lightning static from a severe local storm (as recorded in New Mexico).

With such an interesting description, decided to keep the Newtonian out overnight and image this active area of the sun around 1pm Sunday to see where all the action is coming from. Safety first of course - a Baader white light solar filter that cuts out 99.999% of white light, in series with a 10nm-wide 540 nanometre Baader Solar Continuum filter. Saves my camera optics being fried.

The granulated texture (tiny white spots) of the solar disk (outside of the sunspot) are columns of convection currents in the solar protosphere, their average size being 1500 km in width, permitting the scale of Australia (4000 km wide) to be set at around 2.66 granules – bottom left corner. These enormous convection cells (quite cool at around 6000 degrees Celcius) typically last between 8 and 20 minutes before being replaced by new convection cells.

Within Sunspot 2824 - you could fit around 10 Australia’s within the Umbra (i.e. the darker cooler core of the sunspot where the magnetic field is perpendicular to the solar surface). The surrounding Penumbra is about 3-4 Australia-continents wide (where the magnetic field is inclined to the solar surface). Beyond the penumbra new solar sunspots are forming.

Stack of 5% (350) of 7033 frames.