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Title: Mega Solar Prominence Post by: markt on March 20, 2011, 12:30:07 am Woke this saturday morning as expected to clear blue skies, and had already decided I was going to spend the day in the garden doing a bit of solar astronomy. Getting my first observation in just after 9am I was really pleased to see the solar limb alive with promises as I looked through my hydrogen alpha scope. On the western limb there was a prominence that just had the appearance that it could possibly lift off from the sun. Well round about 11.30am it started to rapidly pull away from the solar disk. In the space of just over 1/2 an hour the prom had turned into the largest I had seen in some time - I would estimate the prominence lifted off at a speed of some 750000km/hr!!!
I took this shot of it at around 11.54ut, it still had some connection to the sun in the form of a huge loop of plasma... (http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5216/5540038692_03deb8804a_b.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/56424473@N05/5540038692/) Huge-Prom--11-03-19-11-53-55 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/56424473@N05/5540038692/) by Mark Townley (http://www.flickr.com/people/56424473@N05/), on Flickr Just 10 minutres after that it had expanded so much I had to 'zoom out' with my scope to get it all in the field of view. The next one was taken at 12.04ut (http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5099/5540474558_44d105b1f9_b.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/56424473@N05/5540474558/) wide-angle-big-prom-and-disk--11-03-19-12-03-38 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/56424473@N05/5540474558/) by Mark Townley (http://www.flickr.com/people/56424473@N05/), on Flickr Just minutes after this it had expanded and dimmed to the point of no longer being visible. Just shows how dynamic our star actually is! If this had been directed earthward we would be expecting aurora, however it was thrown out 90deg away from us. Hope you like them! Mark :) Title: Re: Mega Solar Prominence Post by: Big Dipper on March 20, 2011, 03:35:07 am Congratulations Mark - you've caught some stunning detail there.
Funnily enough, I've just been viewing a short video of a flare loop by a guy on another of my forums. To see it, click here (http://www.solar-007.eu/site/). Title: Re: Mega Solar Prominence Post by: JohnC on March 20, 2011, 01:33:46 pm Excellent,Mark.
Title: Re: Mega Solar Prominence Post by: markt on March 20, 2011, 01:42:11 pm Thanks guys! It was brilliant to be able to see our sun so active!
Here's a montage I made of the event: (http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5291/5542228033_9ed609563c_o.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/56424473@N05/5542228033/) one-shot-montage-sml (http://www.flickr.com/photos/56424473@N05/5542228033/) by Mark Townley (http://www.flickr.com/people/56424473@N05/), on Flickr Though I would recommend you check out the orginal here> http://www.flickr.com/photos/56424473@N05/5542875236/sizes/o/in/photostream/ Here's my animation of it Andy, not quite SDO quality but not bad for a bloke in his garden ;) http://www.flickr.com/photos/56424473@N05/5542849278/sizes/o/in/photostream/ Cheers! Mark :) Title: Re: Mega Solar Prominence Post by: martinastro on March 22, 2011, 07:49:29 pm WOW!! - Mark you have completely out done yourself with this catch, congrats!. This really sums up how violent our closest star really is. :) |