The afternoon was mostly clear albeit not entirely cloudless. I made several solar AVI movies using a variety of settings. When I stacked them, I tried using only the best 20% of the frames, 50%, and even 90%. The individual frames are 2.9 msec in duration with the camera gain set to 250. After much tinkering, I decided that the optimal sampling is the best 20% of the recorded frames. It’s what I have been using, but I am always looking for improvements.
The big sunspot AR3784 had a major ejection of solar material and an intense flare yesterday. The effects of the flare were felt as a shortwave radio blackout on the sunlit side of the Earth yesterday. An associated coronal mass ejection (CME) is due to hit earth tomorrow and Saturday. It should make for very lively auroral displays; I have read.
The solar disk looked like this with AR3784 just past the solar meridian (mid-line) and north of the equator. Sunspot group AR3780 is disappearing on the western limb.
There are very active prominences on the eastern limb, and there is still some prominence activity on the western limb. The north and south polar regions remain relatively quiet.
