Comments on: The Sun's still blasting out flares… BIG ones

By: Matthew Ota

Matthew Ota — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:04:46 +0000

The Sun is an attractive object to observe by amateur skywatchers with the proper equipment. With a white light solar filter attached securely to the objective end of your telescope, you can observe the sunspots in the photosphere. With a hydrogen alpha solar telescope, you can observe prominences and filaments in the chromosphere.

This year amateur solar astronomy is going to rise in popularity due to the annular solar eclipse on May 20th and the transit of Venus on June 5th.

By: Mark Holman

Mark Holman — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:56:38 +0000

I recalled on CB radio the magnetic release of energy, typical stuff, and I hold a ham license, and a Born Again Christian, and I am not a off the wall religious person, religious PPL can not perform a simple math formula or understand OHM’s law unless they fried their brain on drugs then they are babbling nonsense and wearing rags maybe.

By: The Sun lets fly a pulsing X-class flare | Os Vídeos Engraçados

The Sun lets fly a pulsing X-class flare | Os Vídeos Engraçados — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:31:21 +0000

[...] Blog post with LOTS more info: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/01/28/the-suns-still-blas… [...]

By: Mesmerizing, towering loops of solar magnetism « Talking Monkey News

Mesmerizing, towering loops of solar magnetism « Talking Monkey News — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:08:37 +0000

[...] know I’ve been writing about the Sun quite a bit lately, but I have a followup to yesterday’s cool video of the big solar flare… and you’re gonna like [...]

By: corebela

corebela — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:49:47 +0000

@14 zeke
Does anyone know what would happen if the x40+ was poinitng at us? Considering the scale you gave me only goes to x20.

By: Joseph G

Joseph G — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:14:48 +0000

One thing I’ve always wondered about these bloomin’ flare pics: these satellites are made specifically to look at the sun, right? And presumably a flare is one of the more interesting phenomena that you’d want to be able to investigate, right? So why are these detectors all calibrated in such a way that flares cause massive blooming? If it’s not possible to capture such a high dynamic range, wouldn’t they want to include some kind of flare-specific sensor? A FlareCam?

By: Brad

Brad — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:57:43 +0000

I don’t understand “magnetic energy”. What is that? Isn’t it electrical energy being released in the flare? They are the same thing of course, in different forms.

Flash, flash, flash…10 times. Seems almost like lightning. On a colossal solar scale, of course.

Also: What do you think would happen if the shot a big X-flare level CME right dead centre at Earth? Specifically, is the SOHO sat designed to handle something like that? Or would it get totally fried?

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:55:13 +0000

@1. ErisArticWolf Says: The sun is reallly cool!!

Compared to *really* hot and massive stars sure! Our yellow dwarf Sun is a cool 6,000 degrees or so versus 42, 000 degrees kelvin for the O5 type blue supergiant Naos (Zeta Puppis) for instance.

By: An Extraordinary Aurora Borealis - NYTimes.com

An Extraordinary Aurora Borealis - NYTimes.com — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:23:33 +0000

[...] the video through Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog, who noticed through a comment contributor, Sunspotter.In case you missed it, here’s what such displays look like from above, courtesy of NASA [...]

By: sunspotter

sunspotter — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 03:09:04 +0000

Speaking of all the activity last week, Alister Chapman captured some amazing video (not time lapse stills) of the Aurora Borealis and just posted an amazing video to his blog. check it out here:
http://www.xdcam-user.com/alisters-blog/

(it’s not me… I just thought it was kinda relevant to this post)
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