The Sun on February 25, 2024

An unusually large and powerful sunspot has been facing Earth for the past few days.

February 25, 2024

Tags: Solar Astronomy, Astronomy, Astrophotography, Photography

WARNING: When observing the Sun, be sure to do so safely! Use only equipment that is designed specifically for that purpose and is produced by reputable manufacturers. Follow their directions closely. Do not improvise your own filter material for solar observing. If you are careless, you risk instant and permanent vision loss or injury.

Largely due to me being a complete imbecile—I blew my morning writing my prior blog post when I should have been out with my solar observing gear when it was actually clear—I waited until a thicker layer of hazy cloud cover was between me and the Sun before I got out to have a look at an impressively large sunspot region.

Still, I managed to pull off a marginally decent shot:

Sun — Canon EOS M200 with Meade Series 390 90mm f/11 achromatic refractor, Lunt Solar Systems Herschel wedge, and the lens cell of an Orion Shorty 2x Barlow lens, ISO 100, 1/160 sec., f/11.

According to spaceweather.com, this region harbors energy for rather strong X-class solar flares. And if that weren’t enough to make you feel a bit daunted, it’s so large you could line up eight Earths from one end to the other.

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