| BEHOLD THE SUN:
Would you like to see fiery prominences and new-cycle sunspots
with your own eyes? On sale now: Personal
Solar Telescopes. |
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REENTRY UPDATE: US
Space Command reports that the Early Ammonia Servicer (EAS) probably
reentered Earth's atmosphere on Nov. 3rd at 04:51:00 GMT +/- 1 minute
over the following coordinates: 48° S, 151° E. That would place
the fireball over the Indian Ocean south of Tasmania where sightings
are unlikely.
SUNSPOT 1007: Over
the weekend, sunspot 1007 grew
into a substantial active region with two planet-sized cores connected
by dark magnetic filaments thousands of kilometers long. The ensemble
bears a curious resemblence to the pipe of Sherlock Holmes: "It's
filamentary, my dear Watson!" says Alan Friedman who sends
this picture from his backyard observatory in Buffalo, New York:
The high latitude and magnetic polarity of sunspot 1007 identify
it as a member of new Solar Cycle 24. This is the fourth new-cycle
sunspot to breach the sun's surface in the past month. In a year
of almost no
sunspots, four is significant. It means that the sun is beginning
a slow ascent out of solar minimum to a more active phase of the
sunspot cycle. Solar minimum is not a permanent condition! Readers,
if you have a solar
telescope, train it on sunspot 1007 to witness a sign of things
to come.
more images: from
Larry Alvarez of Flower Mound, Texas; from
Stephen W. Ramsden of Atlanta, Georgia; from
B. Hustus and J. Stetson of South Portland, Maine; from
Peter Paice of Belfast, Northern Ireland; from
Pavol Rapavy of Rimavska Sobota, Slovakia
EVENING SKY SHOW:
When the sun sets this evening, go outside
and look south. The crescent Moon and Jupiter are gathering together
for a tight conjunction less than 3o wide. The pair is
so bright and eye-catching, you can find them even without a sky
map.
Yesterday at sunset in Chiuduno, Italy, Antonio Finazzi photographed
the Moon approaching Jupiter:
"This is a 6 second exposure at ISO 400," says Finazzi
"I used a Nikon
D700." Similar settings should work as well for tonight's
conjunction.
more images: from
Tamas Ladanyi of Budapest, Hungary; from
Chris Picking of Masterton, North Island, New Zealand; from
David Hanson of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; from
Albert Engert of Uengershausen, Bayern, Deutschland; from
Martin Popek of Nýdek, Czech republic; from
Tomasz Adam of Staszów, Poland; from
Bob Johnson of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; from
Austen L. Onek of Memphis, Tennessee; from
Doug Zubenel of De Soto, Kansas; from
Antonios Pantelidis of Lake Prespa, Greece; from
Mark Stauss of rural Buchanan county, Missouri;
Oct.
2008 Aurora Gallery
[Previous Octobers: 2007,
2006, 2004,
2003, 2002,
2001,
2000]
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