Starship Asterisk*

Sunspots and Solar Eclipse

Explanation: A New Moon joined giant sunspot group AR 2192 to dim the bright solar disk during Thursday's much anticipated partial solar eclipse. Visible from much of North America, the Moon's broad silhouette is captured in this extreme telephoto snapshot near eclipse maximum from Santa Cruz, California. About the size of Jupiter, the remarkable AR 2192 itself darkens a noticeable fraction of the Sun, near center and below the curved lunar limb. As the sunspot group slowly rotates across the Sun and out of view in the coming days its activity is difficult to forecast. But the timing of solar eclipses is easier to predict. The next will be a total solar eclipse on March 20, 2015.

<< Previous APOD

This Day in APOD

Next APOD >>

[/b]

Wonderful image!

Text, too, though it inspired me to spend way more time than I expected figuring out flights to the Faroe Islands. (Not going; way too much. Drat!)

Wish I had been there. We were clouded in...probably the best way to view this anyway....really neat shot with the large sunspot.

:---[===] *

There has been some thinking that the sunspot cycle is fading toward toward very little or no activity. This image clearly shows that this hasn't happened yet. Very nice shot.

skies were clear until about 45 minutes before the event started. But I could tell the difference in brightness , it was an off color " sky ". Stuff happens here in the Pacific Northwest, almost as if celestial events are cloudbait over here.

Partial Solar Eclipse as seen from Anchorage AK, where we had approx 60% coverage of the Sun.
7" AP refractor, Coronado Ha filter, Canon 5D DSLR