| Large Scale Sunspot Imaging |
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| Page Last Updated: 28 May 2012 Copyright © 1999-2012 Arthur L. Whipple, All Rights Reserved |
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Recent Images
The images below were taken with my 35 cm aperture reflector. A description can be found here. Each image includes a caption that briefly describes the NOAA region number, date, time, conditions, and general orientation as well as the equipment and image processing used.
Note the oval structure in the image above located in the light bridge that divides the two largest umbral regions. It turns out that this oval was a short lived feature. The Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded its formation and disappearance over a period of eleven hours as shown in movie below made from a set of 38 sub-images taken by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) at 6173A between 12:24 UT and 23:24 UT.
Click on a sunspot image thumbnail to view the full sized image
AR 11435 2012.03.17
AR 11363 2011.12.04
AR 11339 2011.11.08
AR 11339 2011.11.05
AR 11314 2011.10.10
AR 11313 2011.10.10
AR 11312 2011.10.07
AR 11302 2011.09.30
AR 11298 2011.09.19
AR 11289 2011.09.11
AR 11289 2011.09.10
AR 11283 2011.09.04
AR 11283 2011.09.03
AR 11281 2011.08.31
AR 11279 2011.08.31
AR 11279 2011.08.29
AR 11281 2011.08.29
AR 11271 2011.08.24
AR 11271 2011.08.23
AR 11271 2011.08.21
AR 11272 2011.08.21
Older Images
The images below were taken earlier from my backyard observatory in Maryland. Each image includes a caption that briefly describes the equipment used. The telescope and recording equipment have evolved considerably over the years. From more descriptions, with illustrations, please follow these links through the stages of development (stage 1, stage 2, stage 3). A description of my pre-2009 data reduction methods is here.
The NOAA region number, date, time, and general orientation is marked on each image.
Click on a sunspot image thumbnail to view the full sized image
AR 10908 2006.09.10
AR 10904 2006.08.13
AR 10904 2006.08.12
AR 10900 2006.07.16
AR 10898 2006.07.09
AR 10898 2006.07.01
Center Disk Granulation 2005.10.01
AR 10808 2005.09.11
AR 10808 2005.09.10
AR 10805 2005.09.05
AR 10798 2005.08.21
AR 10797 2005.08.14
AR 10792 2005.08.06
AR 10794 2005.08.05
Click here to load an animated
GIF
of the
11/24/00 UT white light flare in NOAA 9236
Click on the image below to view a larger image of the peak of the flare
NOAA 9236 2000.11.24
The flare is the
bright white points to the west (right)
of the main umbral area
AR 10794 2005.08.06
AR 10795 2005.08.06
AR 10791 2005.07.24
AR 10410 2003.07.20
AR 10397 2003.07.04
AR 10400 2003.07.04
AR 10134 2002.09.29
AR 10119 2002.09.21
AR 10105 2002.09.07
AR 9600 (N) & 9601 (S) 2001.09.03
AR 9543 2001.07.21
The Great Region of March-April 2001 Over Two Rotations
AR 9433 2001.04.22
AR 9393 2001.03.28
NOAA 9077 2000.07.12
NOAA 9073, 9069, 9068, 9067 2000.07.09
Before January 2000 I used film instead of the video camera. The scale at the film was about 14 arcsec/mm. A description of this equipment, with pictures can be found here. I've collected some notes on white light solar photography here.
The original photographs were taken on Kodak Technical Pan film developed in HC 110 dilution B for 6 minutes. The films were then scanned using an Olympus ES-10 scanner with a resolution of 1770 dpi. This yielded a scale of 0.2 arcsec/pixel on the raw scans. These scans were scaled by a factor of 0.5 using NIH Image. The final scale of the images is therefore approximately 0.4 arcsec/pixel. All images were filtered using an unsharp mask, also with NIH Image.
NOAA 8731 1999.10.16
NOAA 8651 1999.08.06
NOAA 8644, 8645, 8647 1999.07.25
NOAA 8614, 8620 1999.07.05
Solar Links:
Astronomical Institute, Academy of
Sciences of the Czech Republic
Franky Dubois, Langemark, Belgium
Photos taken by Gordon Garcia of the Northwest Suburban (Illinois)
Astonomers Club
NOAA Space Environment Center
SHINE - Univ. of California
Big Bear Solar Observatory ARM Site
Carl Sagan Live Web TV Broadcast
Sacramento Peak Live H-alpha Images
GOES X-ray Flux Plots: 1-min ave, and 5-min ave,
Comments regarding this web site may be e-mailed to: squalodon@comcast.net