Hi all Get those filters and telescopes out!
The biggest sunspot I've ever seen is visible without magnification using just a dark filter . (But it is just barely visible using my shadow sharpener with glossy photo paper as a screen). It been on all the news and there are free telescope viewing sites all around town. It is a very beautiful sunspot through a telescope or a telescope image projected onto a screen. You can see a great deal of structure and well defined sunspot umbral & penumbral regions. Auroras are predicted to be visible much further south than normal and there is a danger of damaging solar flares. (Roger, you should have good views up in Canada) Both the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope at Kitt Peak and the Sacramento Peak scope in New Mexico are working overtime studying this one. And we're lucky that there's no clouds (It's monsoon season). If you like this stuff, you'll love these great websites. There are photos and movies of the sunspot, auroras and flares that are going on right now. http://www.sunspot.noao.edu/ http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/images/cur_drw.jpg http://science.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/greenwch.htm http://www.sunspotcycle.com/ By the way, those of you coming to The NASS Conference have been given special permission during our tour to visit the subterranean Observation Room in the tunnels beneath the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope. An image of the solar disk is focused onto big round horizontal table with a white screen. There we will see an image of the sun that is about 5 feet across. Be sure to bring your sunglasses for this! It is very bright and almost blinding without sunglasses. John John L. Carmichael Jr. Sundial Sculptures 925 E. Foothills Dr. Tucson Arizona 85718 USA Tel: 520-696-1709 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website: <http://www.sundialsculptures.com> -
