Fox News Hype

What was Fox News talking about? 

In this report Fox New reports: YIKES! Chunk of Sun Headed Toward Earth at 2 Million Miles an Hour http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/07/30/chunk-sun-headed-toward-earth-2-million-miles-hour

Latest unaltered images from SDO and NOAA We can see that different filters record different information. The dark areas on the green one from NOAA reveals less X-rays and the bright are more. These X-rays are the same as when you go to the doctors. See also in the side panel to the right The Sun Now latest images.

The Pink (211) filter above is the closest current image to the one below since I wanted to show the most recent image the most recent image from SOHO is several days ago. It is notoriously late

Earth Facing Coronal Hole

We have a very large coronal hole that is directly in an earth facing position. This same coronal hole has rotated around the sun for 3 rotations it has reduced significantly since that last 2 rotations but there is still a likelihood of a solar storm in 2 to 3 days time. This rotation may also have less impact due to the configuration of the magnetic field of the surrounding area.

Full Disc Coronal hole is in the center

A coronal hole is an area where the magnetic lines are open. The open fields allow the material to be

Double Peaked Long duration C3.1 X-ray flare

Long duration C3.1 X-ray flare, This one was actually double peaked and although the official location was 11800 There is a high level of confidence it flared significantly in region 11793 for the first peak and a longer and brighter flare from region 11800. There is a CME associated with this flare although it appears to be going mostly to the left of the planet. 

CME

Thank you and How to get page notifications on Facebook

Thank You Sun Whisperers Community

We started our Sun Whisperers Facebook page just a few short months ago and already we are up to 700 likes and it's all organic! I first would like to take a moment to say thank you to all the people who have liked the page. So many great comments and posts, likes and shares. Love you! Even if you just enjoy the posts in your news feed, I feel your love.  But just in case you happen to have missed a few of the posts here is a little instruction on how to make sure you never miss a page post again! This is especially useful if you are effected directly by space weather like a lot of people are through their career, lifestyle or sensitivity.

How To get Page Notifications on Facebook 

In order to make sure you receive a notification for a Facebook Page, after you have liked a page, hover your pointer over the like button and a drop down menu will open. Click √ Get Notifications, √ Show in News Feed and √ Add to Interests Lists once you check Add to Interests Lists another drop down menu will appear and you can select an interest list you have already created or create a new list. Interest Lists will show up on the left margin on your Facebook News feed.

Filament vs Prominence

Filament vs Prominence. A filament is a long cord like structures that sometimes release in beautiful displays and sometimes they don't. When it's on the edge so that is stands out against the black
background it is called a prominence. When it is further in and harder to make out it is a filament. We have two great arcing prominences releasing right now.

 

Solar Dragon

Solar Dragon

Was looking like it was going to be a completely quiet day so was looking at the progression of the sunspots. Then I noticed this amazing filament eruption over the course of many hours.

Solar Dragon

Flares and Filaments of the 17th and 18th (07-17-2013-07-18-2013)

The beginning of surprises on the eastern limb started out with quiet filament eruption on the 17th,

and one of the south west

about 24 hours later we see a repeat performance only this time with 2 C2.3 flares one right after the

C2.1 X-ray Fare

An impulsive C2.1 X-ray flare erupted from active region 11793. This is an earth facing location.

 

C2.1 X-ray Flare.

What is a flare anyway? A flare is a sudden brightening of the sun's surface. It effects the sun in all the levels and in all of the electromagnetic frequencies including the X-rays.

The chart overlaid on the image to the left is from NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center  which has a very sensitive satellite that records X-rays and relays data to earth. The Levels are Categorized by intensity A, B, C for Common, M for Moderate and X for Extreme. Within each  level there are 9.9 smaller levels So Each flare receives a letter and number designation. Each level is 10 times stronger than the one before, on a logarithmic progression.

The Purple inset image is an optical X-ray

Learning about the Sun Start here>

Not Quite Quiet Sun

Nice and quite solar activity it is allowing me time to learn all the new details involved in setting up and creating a site to share all about the sun and solar activity. As with everything there is a learning curve involved. I was just telling my friend yesterday how many fun and exciting things there are to learn about in solar activity and space weather. I realized that lots of people are becoming more interested everyday and I thought it might be nice to share what I have managed to teach myself and what I am learning as I go. So lets start with this great video that I take no credit for.

What is a "quiet" Sun?

Of course quiet is a relative term during solar maximum as we are. Quiet is still quite active. Take for example this image of SDO's composite image of filters 171,193 and 211 ( will explain the filters later)

What to look for on the SDO images. 

There are many features that we look at that help us determine the space weather and also to

Tracking Solar Events 07-16-2013

Tracking Solar Events 07-16-2013

We started off with a C flare (video) that produced a CME (Photos).

Then there was a CME..

Solar Activity

After a somewhat active day with many C level flares the sun