Solar Activity

Fantastic image of the eruption of a massive solar filament
 taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on the 31st August 2012
Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA, NASA/STEREO, SOHO (ESA & NASA)

Yesterday, I spent two hours in my backyard with my telescope, camera and laptop taking video clips of sunspots.  All went reasonably well until, having packed all my gear away, I discovered that I had not registered the captured frames and consequently had nothing to show for my labours!

What a fool am I?

Anyway those nice people at NASA have come to my rescue! I thought this photograph taken from space is absolutely fantastic, to use a much abused word 'Awesome'!

I would recommend watching the video from which this still was taken. Its brilliant!
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/News090412-filament.html

Anyway, here's a photo of a sunspot I took earlier in May using a compact camera to shoot HD video through my 90mm Maksutov Cat telescope with a white light filter. Notice the 'orange peel' affect on the sun's surface created by thermal convection currents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maksutov_telescope