Solar sunspot activity - AR3664 - 09-05-24 - doimg

            We all remember the once in a lifetime viewing of “that” aurora from your home location on the night of 10th May 2024. But do many people who witnessed it know where it came from?
As we approach our Sun’s next solar cycle peak (we know it to be every 11 years thanks to German amateur astronomer Samuel Heinrich Schwabe’s observations and discovery in 1843) sunspot designation AR3664 revealed itself from around the solar limb earlier that same week. It was so large people were comparing it to the Carrington sunspot of 1859.
Astronomer Richard Carrington of Redhill, Surrey, England studied and discovered various aspects of our sun. Both he and Richard Hodgson on 1st September 1859 had observed the first Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) an eruption near the sun’s surface due to changes in its localised magnetic fields, throwing immense energy into space. Both of them had observed the effects the flash had had on Earth based magnetometers from currents arising from enhanced ionospheric ionization. Carrington reported the event to the Royal Astronomical Society.
A day later on 2nd September (after around 17 hours of having witnessed the flash from the CME) the effect of what they had witnessed was seen and felt. Having travelled the distance between the Sun and Earth the high energy solar particles ejected from the CME Carrington and Hodgson had witnessed bombarded the Earth’s magnetic field (magnetosphere). The estimated energy that was released was estimated to be 10^35 electron volts of energy, equivalent to a 10 megaton nuclear bomb or the amount of energy the sun releases in 10 seconds. The aurora caused by the particles interacting with the magnetosphere causing atoms to glow was witnessed far south and north into the tropics akin to turning night into rising sunlight, causing havoc to telegraph systems causing fires in some instances, disruption to naval navigation systems and reportedly causing shocks to some people interacting with metal objects.
Carrington had deduced the two events were connected and his observations of the sunspot he had observed and sketched and the resulting event was named in his honour.
AR3664 was estimated to be around 200,000KM in length spanning the equivalent of 15 Earths side by side. It had expelled at least four CME’s into space towards Earth, as the energy hit our magnetosphere it revealed colourful auroras far further afield than around the northern and southern poles as people across a lot of Canada and the USA, down to southern Europe in the northern hemisphere and up to Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina in the southern hemisphere witnessed the colourful spectacle. It was a sight to behold.
So when news of the appearance of AR3664 had been announced this perhaps very rare event I had to see for myself so on the 9th May 2024 I setup my solar rig to visually see in white light and hydrogen alpha the magnificence of AR3664 and have compiled my images into one composition to share, hope you enjoy it, oh and look out for the angry unicorn…
   

Taken on: November 30, -0001

Tags:

Astrophotography

doimg

sunspot

AR3664

aurora

white

light

hydrogen

alpha

quark

Baader

Televue

ZWO

William

Optics

Daystar « less

Stats: 184 views

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder