The Sun Show

“My head keeps moving around.”

“Want me to hold it still?”

“Sure.”

So, with care, I carefully grabbed the dignified lady’s perfectly-permed head, and braced her by the eyepiece.

“I see it.”

The sun, glimpsed through a hydrogen-alpha scope, is a marvelous sight, so we gathered in the parking lot of the gracious retirement home, and reveled in the views.

(Her hair was fine.)

Here’s a photo from a few months ago, snapped with my cell phone through the same telescope. The “lint” at the edge would dwarf the earth.

Here’s an illustration that’s not mine:

These prominences are business as usual. The coronal mass ejection (CME) heading our way was not: a space hurricane–something “special” (if you’re not a satellite with circuits to fry, that is).

The Sun is nearing solar maximum, and boy is it restless. I didn’t see the sucker punch heading our way, until…

A few hours later, I tried to keep my own head still, gazing through another scope at the moon. A lovely half phase hung in the deepening blue, shadows stark across the vast rocky plains. After too much screen time, it seemed a good idea to look at cosmic photons, so that’s what was on the menu. Deciding to add a cup of tea, I stood up, and caught a glimpse of red.

The northern sky started to glow.

The aurora! A solar storm arriving, slamming into the ionosphere, “making the air itself glow.”

Tea would wait.

Ol’ Mister Sun, never failing to deliver something nifty. From helping friends snag a look in the parking lot, to a solitary sitting with the stars while the reds and greens danced overhead in utter silence–What a treat to observe it!

Now, I’m off to record a podcast with the gents up in Charlottesville.

Have a great weekend, and keep looking up!

–Josh