Solar Imaging Session - November 7, 2011 (9 Sunspot Groups & Numerous Dark Filaments !)

The sky this early morning was cloudy and I thought this will be another frustrating day for me to image huge AR11339 Sunspot Group in high res again! As I went back to bed to get more rest, I saw some sunlight finally coming through the window at around 8:00am and i quickly jump out of my bed and quickly setup the PST-Ha and start imaging the Sun. AR11339 Sunspot Group, although huge in size is not that super active in its core group in Ha light although one can see some small flares inside the group though. Overshadowed by AR11339 in attention is AR11338 Sunspot Group which shows more solar activity inside its core than AR11339. AR11337 is very silent and small AR11334 Sunspot Group is already departing near the western limb. 3 new sunspot groups namely AR11341,11342 and 11343 Sunspot Groups are coming out from the NNE limb and shows some promising activity in the region. Several beautiful small dark filaments surround the new groups in the NNE limb while another thick dark filament can be seen above AR11337 Sunspot Group. A long fainter dark filament can also be seen in the SE limb near AR11340 Sunspot Group. A moderate sized looped eruptive prominence can be seen near eastern limb near AR11340 as well.

In white light wavelength, of course the center of attraction is on huge AR11339 Sunspot groups which is more or less around 100,000kms end to end in length. I'm looking forward to observing this group the next 2-3 days so I can compare its length to recent big groups AR11302 and AR11330. IMHO, I think the only advantages of AR11339 compared to the 2 mentioned groups is its large penumbra; region. In length, I think it is not that far off from the 2 said groups but since it haven't yet cross the central meridian of the Sun yet, we can't still determine the full length of this group till the next 2 days. I know trying to compare it to the said groups this early is unfair :) LOL

Anyway, as for the rest of the other sunspot groups, there are 9 sunspot groups on the solar disk now! A small undesignated sunspot group east of AR11338 sunspot group will probably be designated AR11344 if it continues to develop IMHO. New AR11341 and AR11342 Sunspot Groups are also big in size and I feel it will be at least as big as AR11338 Sunspot Groups in the days to come as it comes out of the NNE limb :0

Overall, I'm happy today with the results of my solar imaging session as I was able to get both white light and Ha wavelength images :)