Some interesting sunspots today, which are directly facing Earth and are “capable of producing significant flaring, expect moderate solar flare activity”, according to Australian Space Weather Services.
(Edit: within hours of this image being taken, ASWS reported a series of class M flares and two huge class X flares from sunspot AR 2673. One of these flares was a “once in a decade” class X9 event, causing “major to severe” geomagnetic storm conditions on 8th Sept and the potential for aurorae sightings from lower latitudes).
Sunspots are “cooler” regions on the Sun’s surface (photosphere), caused by magnetic field disturbances.
Sunspot Details:
The darkest group is AR 2674, which rotated into view a few days ago.
AR 2674 is around 16,000 km in diameter (bigger than planet Earth, which is only 12,756 km diameter).
The smaller group is designated AR 2673.
Spaceweather.com published a video of these sunspots > Here <
Image:
Exposure: 1/160th sec, f/20, ISO 100.
Date: 2017-09-04 at 1.02 pm.
Location: Leumeah, NSW.
Sky: clear.
Processing: Canon DPP and GIMP.
Cropping: yes.
Gear:
Telescope: No.
Imaging camera: Canon EOS 60D.
Lens focal length: 150-600 mm set to 600 mm.
Mount: standard tripod, unguided.
Orion 200 mm certified solar filter, hand-held.
Warning:
Blindness alert: never look at the Sun directly or through a camera viewfinder!
Image © R.Powell
Cosmic Focus 
Roger
Such fine details captured! Thanks for the link (video of those sunspots).
To my amazement I’ve found that the Sun’s equatorial regions rotate faster than the polar regions!
🙂
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So … a lot going on in the Sun.
Sun’s corona undergoing continual restructuring.
AR 2674 was the huge one, Roger!
I’ve heard it was visible with unaided eye.
Would you know, was it any impact on radio communications from the solar wind?
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Hello Kazia. There have been several M-class flares over the last 24 hours as a result of these two sunspot groups. “M” is the second highest classification group, which is a measure of X-ray intensity from the Sun. These flares are not uncommon and they can and do affect radio communications around the world.
Please do not try to view the sunspots with direct vision – not even at sunset when the sun looks red, because the more energetic ultra-violet photons will still damage your eyesight.
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