Solar Imaging Session - January 8, 2014

The sky this morning is hazy but seeing continuous to be good for the past 2 days. Giant AR11944 Sunspot Group is now in central meridian, which means is facing the Earth's direction now and according to Spaceweather.com , it has unleashed yesterday an X1-class explosion in the sunspot's magnetic canopy hurled a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) in our direction. High-latitude sky watchers shoud be alert for auroras on Jan. 9th when the cloud is expected to arrive. NOAA forecasters estimate a 60% chance of polar geomagnetic storms. AR11946 Sunspot Group is also getting larger as well. In Ha wavelength, AR11944 Sunspot Group continue to stretch its maximum size as it is now in central meridian, meaning the Sun is now at the center of the Sun's disk. There is large hedgerow prominence in the NE limb.

Here is an enhanced version of AR11944 Sunspot Group through a different processing to enhance granulations and also get more details on the umbral structure itself.