It’s been a week since I was able to indulge in solar voyeurism. It was nice to finally have a clear day to do so. All of the active regions that we had been following at the beginning of the month have either faded or disappeared to the sun’s far side.
Below, I have annotated the H-alpha image because the two westernmost sunspots do not appear in the sunspot image. Here, they are represented by their plages (white hot areas of solar activity that appear as bright patches around the sunspots).
There are several areas of prominence activity along the W-NW, W-SW, NE and SE solar limbs.
My sunspot image below shows only three of the five active regions noted in NASA’s SDO image and my H-alpha image above. AR4130 and AR4134, not visible below, appear in the image above.
Below, the Northeastern solar limb shows a complex set of arches of sun stuff forming a dramatic prominence. The Southeastern limb shows a simpler arch.
On the Western limb, there is a dark filament that upon reaching the NW limb becomes a visible prominence. Like many such filament-prominence complexes, it has a distinctly 3D appearance. Along the Western and Southwestern limbs, lesser prominences make a lovely display.
