Spaceweather.com: Huge Solar Ejection Prominence Today 7/28/2010 pics

www.spaceweather.com...

BIG ERUPTION: A magnetic filament on the sun's southeastern limb erupted today between 1100 and 1600 UT, catching the attention of amateur astronomers around the world.

update:

MAGNETIC ERUPTION: Today around 1200 UT, magnetic fields looping over the sun's southeastern limb became unstable and erupted. The blast produced a towering prominence dozens of times taller than Earth itself...

David Evans took the picture from his backyard observatory in Coleshill, North Warwickshire, UK. "It was a huge event," he says, "and just goes to show how the sun can surprise observers even at this 'low' phase of the solar cycle."

More photos at link





[edit on 7/28/2010 by this_is_who_we_are]

[edit on 7/28/2010 by this_is_who_we_are]

I started a thread a while ago regarding an older sunspot
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Been following closely.
S&F for the thread people are overlooking the significance of the sun activity.

Very nice pics, you can pick up that particular telescope for $500 so it's well within the realms of self observation. There are cheaper options to observe the sun safely, though they will not allow observation of the prominences sadly.

However in response to the previous poster, while we are more vulnerable in the sense of the lifestyle we are accustomed to being disrupted by solar activity, the solar activity itself is not particularly worthy of mention, not yet anyway. Not in the sense of any impending doom. The sun has an 11 year cycle and we have been witness to far more spectacular events in the past. The only difference is that since the last active period we now have the Internet and a lot more people online and accessing this type of information. I can understand that to them it is all new, exciting and in some ways scary but it certainly is not of any significance yet.
It may be in the near future, and because we rely heavily on the satellites and complicated power grids any event like the one in the late 1800s will have a more noticeable effect. But if you search on line you will find old photos that make anything we have seen recently look pretty insignificant, and we're still here

[edit on 28-7-2010 by AgentSmith]