Solar Activity Watch 2011

Last year's Solar Activity Thread was popular, and I thought it would be wise to get a new one ready for 2011.

With all of the recent solar activity taking place, the sun approaching solar maximum, and how many threads keep popping up on each event, I thought it would be prudent to have a single thread, especially for all of the avid sun watcher!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Solar Activity Watch 2010

Sun Watch Thread!!! (2009)

I love watching the sun, apparently theres 5 spots starting brew up already

Great I'l support it! i hope they get SDO back online soon...those SOHO images dont get even close to the quality of the SDO.

reply to post by jpsdasnake


Solar stuff is fairly new to me. What is SDO? I know about the SOHO images but I had not heard of these.

Any links for when they do come back?

reply to post by PuterMan


SDO is the NASA´s "Solar Dynamics Observatory"
Official Site:
sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov...

Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org...

As the official site says,its the "hubble for the sun" it photographs the sun in multiple spectres using multiple instruments... read the wikipedia link for more info...

I hope that helped

Oh, and check www.spaceweather.com daily for interresting info about our sun.its my favorite astronomy site.

DontTreadOnMe thank you, a thread i'll be watching all year through!!

Perhaps on page 1 still we could quickly summarize sum of the most useful sources for sun images?

SOHO: sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov...

SDO: sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov...

The Sun Today: sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu...

NASA: umbra.nascom.nasa.gov...

Magnetosphere: www2.nict.go.jp...

www.spaceweather.com...

The SDO JSOC has experienced a disk controller failure. The near-real-time images will not be produced until the controller can be replaced. Stay tuned for updates

Hella timing for this....

Thanks for the thread, I too follow the sun's activity daily, as well as an ametuer can anyway. I just find it fascinating!

reply to post by harryhaller


I didint know "Magnetosphere" thanks!
very interresting site,do they take measurements using a sattelite or is it simulated by measurements taken on earth?

The magnetosphere has been super quiet for the past couple of days, but things started to pick up about an hour ago, the pressure has been rising ever since. Maybe a little bit of solar activity today? The solar wind stream is supposed to hit tomorrow or the next day, could just be a pre-show.

I haven't been able to find much about how the simulation is created, but the NICT is a legit government agency in Japan. en.wikipedia.org... Lots of interesting half translations in the English version of their website.

Thanks for pointing that out quakewatcher. It was really quiet when i posted, but you're right, something's happening now just a little pressure.

jpsdasnake: I'm really not too clued up on the how, i'm sure it is a satellite, but more than that ...

Glad to find this lil section of the forum! The NICT site uses data from a few satellite sources from what I read. I came upon Tracking a Solar Storm as I was trying to recall where I read that. It should have some useful info.

reply to post by rbkruspe


Thanks! you get a star!

The Interplanetary Magnetic Field is pointing South at the moment. An explanation of what that means for earth from Spaceweather.com:

If the IMF points south -- a condition scientists call "southward Bz" -- then the IMF can partially cancel Earth's magnetic field at the point of contact.


Above: Earth's magnetosphere. From the Oulu Space Physics Textbook.
"When Bz is south, that is, opposite Earth's magnetic field, the two fields link up," explains Christopher Russell, a Professor of Geophysics and Space Physics at UCLA. "You can then follow a field line from Earth directly into the solar wind" -- or from the solar wind to Earth. South-pointing Bz's open a door through which energy from the solar wind can reach Earth's atmosphere!

Southward Bz's often herald widespread auroras, triggered by solar wind gusts or coronal mass ejections that are able to inject energy into our planet's magnetosphere.

Source: spaceweather.com...

Current condition:

Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 5.8 nT
Bz: 4.2 nT south

or see a graphical representation of it here:
www2.nict.go.jp...

The line of green and red graphs that says "Bz" (currently all red)

reply to post by quakewatcher


Bz is one of those things that I could never seem to quite remember. Thanks

It has been a long time since I posted on here, but I was so happy to see the 2010 thread continue after I left ATS, and I am equally thrilled to see this thread up and running.

With the hysteria that is building up around the world about end days, and Solar Maximum, a thread like this is really important to stop disinfo and to calm people down.

Besides, the Sun is amazing, and it is really fun to track!

Star and Flag, and my personal thanks for getting this thread up and going for this year.

Bz just dropped South again and pressure has risen. Wondering if we are starting to see the effects of that solar wind that is supposed to reach us?

Great News guys! The SDO is back online!
The following was taken of the "SDO Official Mission Blog":

SDO Images are Available Mon, 03 Jan 2011 The JSOC is repaired, the pipeline is running, and the images are again flowing to our near-realtime partners. Just in time for the region with the large prominence that erupted at the beginning of December to come across the disk. Happy New Year, but better, Happy Perihelion at 1900 UT (2 pm ET) today!

Does anyone know if digital cable tv would be affected by our magnetisphere, like a disruption of it? Our cable is breaking up on all channels here in So Cal, never seen this happen on all channels for over 1/2 hour now. Had this cable for years. Just wondering.

reply to post by SunnyDee


As i understand, not the digital cable part, but satellite signals would be disrupted.

reply to post by SunnyDee


i think satellite imagery would be disrupted by solar flares...it has happened to a friend of mine here in brazil...dunno about the magnetosphere tought...