It was a cloudy evening, just managed to get decent observations and a few pics using my telescope Astroview 100mm and a homemade solar filter.
Notice the dark spot on the lower left part of the Sun…. it is a sunspot!
What are sunspots? Sunspots are regions on the Sun that are cooler than the other parts of the sun. It is a temporary phenomena that occurs on the photosphere! The reason behind it are intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection (transfer of heat) and hence forming areas of reduced surface temperature. It serves as an indication of intense solar activities, like solar flares and CME’s.
What is a photosphere? What are solar flares? What are CME’s? Don’t worry, we’ll be dealing with heliophysics (Studies of the sun) soon, and I do hope that we can also observe sunspots at college too! .
Based on the sizes I think it’s most probably sunspot no. 1263. Yes its length is about 10 Earths! Why the orientation is different? It is caused by the telescope no less… refractors generally have horizontally flipped and upside down images, due to the laws of optics no less! I think there’s also one more sunspot below there, Mr. 1261.... or just a shadow of a cloud. Hmm.
Stay tuned to Stargazer Society MCKL to learn more about the glorious Sun!
Image credits : NASA SDO observatory, astronomynotes.com
