Daily Archives: February 27, 2014

The Sun Online and solar activity. December 27, 2013

Given the large number of complex, active regions on the disk, solar activity has been moderate. The strongest flare was an M1.1 flare from NOAA AR 1982, now approaching the solar West limb. For the coming days, the largest chance for major flaring comes from active region NOAA1990-Cat52 and NOAA1991-Cat59. In particular NOAA1990-Cat52 (the source of the X4.9 flare of Feb 25) is now categorised as beta-delta and is slowly increasing in size.At the time of this writing, the expected shock from the CME following the X4.9 flare has not arrived yet. ACE measurement of low energy proton fluxes are rising since Feb 26 22:00, therefore suggesting the shock is near. We expect thus active geomagnetic conditions later today. They will continue into tomorrow Feb 28 as we expect the influence of the fast solar wind stream from a (small) coronal hole.
SIDC

Equipment: Coronado 90 + Imaging Source DMK + LX75
Processing: Photoshop, Avistack 300 frames
Date: 02/27/14
Time UT: 15:00
Exposure 1/500 sec.

With SPONLI Space is getting closer

Daytime Moon Meets Morning Star

Image Credit & Copyright: Cui Yongjiang and Shi Zexing

Venus now appears as planet Earth’s brilliant morning star standing above the eastern horizon before dawn. For most, the silvery celestial beacon rose in a close pairing with an old crescent Moon on February 26. But seen from locations in western Africa before sunrise, the lunar crescent actually occulted or passed in front of Venus, also in a crescent phase. Farther to the east, the occultation occurred during daylight hours. In fact, this telescopic snapshot of the dueling crescents was captured just before the occultation began under an afternoon’s crystal clear skies from Yunnan Province, China. The unforgettable scene was easily visible to the naked eye in broad daylight.

NASA APOD 27-feb-2014

Trifid Nebula, Lagoon nebula, and NGC 6559 in Sagittarius

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Takahashi Epsilon 180ED
Imaging cameras: Canon EOS 5D Mark II MOD
Mounts: Takahashi EM-400 Temma2
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Vixen FL70S
Guiding cameras: Fishcamp Starfish
Software: DeepSkyStacker, Adobe Photoshop CS3, Auriga Imaging RegiStar
Filters: Infrared 825 nm , UV/IR-cut
Dates: June 26, 2012
Locations: Mt. Ho-Huan (Taiwan)
Frames:
Infrared 825 nm : 12×300″ ISO1600
UV/IR-cut: 16×180″ ISO800
Integration: 1.8 hours

Autor: Wei-Hao Wang

27 February 2014

We select the best works of amateur astrophotographers with details of equipment, shooting processing etc.

The Sun Online and solar activity. December 26, 2013

Solar activity has calmed down since the X-class firework of yesterday. Flaring activity in the past 24 hours has been at the C5 level in active regions NOAA1986-Cat48 and NOAA1989-Cat50. For the first region, the activity corresponds to a (recurrently) activating filament which we expect to erupt at some stage. Major (M or X class flaring) flaring potential remains in various active regions, in particular NOAA1982-46, NOAA1987-Cat54 and NOAA1990-Cat52. The CME associated with the X4.9 flare of Feb 25 00:49 expanded to a full halo CME. Propagation speeds above 1500 km/s were measured. Culgoora Observatory observed type II radio bursts with speeds of 2000 km/s and 700 km/s. As this CME was not completely Earth-directed, we expect that only a glancing blow of the shock will arrive at the Earth, early Feb 27. Soon thereafter (Feb 28 late onwards) we also expect the influence of the fast wind stream from a small coronal hole that crossed central meridian mid Feb 24. As a consequence, we expect episodes of active geomagnetic conditions from early Feb 27 onwards for about 48 hours.
SIDC

Equipment: Coronado 90 + Imaging Source DMK + LX75
Processing: Photoshop, Avistack 300 frames
Date: 02/26/14
Time UT: 14:00
Exposure 1/500 sec.

With SPONLI Space is getting closer

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