active region 3664 and the great magnetic storm of '24

Here's a relatively large group of sunspots known as AR 3664:

active region 3664 5/11/24 21:36.9 UTC
red filter (Ha off band)

Earlier this week the magnetic field associated with this sunspot grouping blasted high energy plasma directly at our planet.  As a result, we experienced the biggest geomagnetic storm in more than 20 years last night, leading to auroras being seen as far south as the Florida keys.  members of my astronomy club were able to capture a red glow in the sky with cameras.  It was reportedly quite impressive around midnight from anza borrego.  sadly it was cloudy at home.  

Spaceweather.com writes:

"The low latitude of these sightings would seem to place this storm among the greatest aurora displays of the past 500 years"

The sunspot grouping is quite similar to the one that caused the carrington event (largest geomagnetic storm in history).  here it is earlier this week with the sunspot grouping of the carrington event superimposed (spaceweather.com).  

A stronger flare occurred today with a significant component directed at the earth so there may be more storms coming...

Here's an animation showing the sunspots in hydrogen alpha and red light:

AR 3664 5/11/24 Ha and red light

Current aurora forecast:

Last night's:

from spaceweather.com:

"ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT CME IS COMING: Giant sunspot AR3664 unleashed another X-flare today (May 11th @ 0139 UT)--its strongest yet. The X5.8-class explosion produced a significant CME with an Earth-directed component...

This CME could reach Earth on May 13th, adding new power to the ongoing geomagnetic storm. CME impact alerts: SMS Text"

Follow up: 

the second CME did not cause a significant geomagnetic storm.  However on 5/14/24 as AR 3664 was rotating off the visible disc (not pointing at us) it gave off the biggest solar flare of this cycle which peaked at X8.7

according to spaceweatherlive.com
it was a β-γ-δ – Beta-Gamma-Delta magnetic class sunspot,
so basically a mishmash
the delta being sunspots containing opposite polarity in the same umbra which typically give the highest energy eruptions.

Image details:

East Bluff, CA

5/11/24 

21:34.2-21:36.9 UTC (2:30 PM local)

light clouds, mediocre seeing

Lunt 60/50 double stacked B1200 for Ha, single stack for off band

manual guiding with alt-azm mount

zwo ASI 290MM

20 second captures

best 50%

Ha

Frames captured=2236

FPS (avg.)=111

ROI=800x800

Shutter=0.174ms

Gain=351 (58%)

off band single stack

Frames captured=2237

FPS (avg.)=111

ROI=800x800

ROI(Offset)=0x0

Shutter=0.032ms

Gain=345 (57%)

AR 3664 Ha 
2024-05-11-2134.2 UTC

4/8/24 solar eclipse first take

there were light clouds in russelville arkansas (my back up location) 

but the eclipse was quite impressive throughout totality.  
here are a few shots straight out of the camera, just cropped (click for full scale):

Baily's beads

faint corona

bright corona 
(thru light clouds)

prominences second half
were stunning visually (naked eye)

Prominences upstaging Baily's beads concluding totality

Diamond ring lighting clouds
(rotated)

will take weeks to process composite views due to the passing clouds.  

Imaging details:

4/8/24 

Russellville, AR

35 deg 18.366 min N

93 deg 7.962  min W

solar transit 1:13:38 PM

totality ~1:50-1:54 PM local, alt 61 degrees

first contact 12:30:10 PM local

second contact (totality) 1:50:08 PM local,

third contact (end of totality) 1:54:15 PM local

fourth contact 3:10:50 PM local

nikon D850

AF-S NIKKOR 300mm f/4E PF ED VR

f/5.6, iso 100, 1/3200-1/200 sec exposure

skywatcher star adventurer tracking mount

eclipse orchestrator for automated image capture

took some pains to orient the camera solar north up (probably)

but the camera's autorotate messed it up

so i think these are rotated 90 degrees clockwise

need to check

  

twilight falcon-9 launch 3/18/24

the launch put on a good show with the setting sun lighting up the contrail

cell phone:

300 mm lens:

brief video clip (click for full size):

note booster flare at 11 sec

Image details:

3/18/24 Newport Beach, CA

7:30 PM local

wide views 

Samsung galaxy S22 ultra

f2.2 1/30 s 2.2 mm ISO 640

f1.8 1/10s 6.4mm ISO 1000

close up and video

nikon D850

AF-S NIKKOR 300mm f/4E PF ED VR

at f/5.6

a few far falcons

during the day, falcon-9 launches are visible for 100 miles.  at night, they can be visible for hundreds of miles, and just after sunset, the backlit plume can be seen from even further away.  

having failed to spot daylight falcon-9 launches from my office at 150 miles away and home (175 miles), i was pleasantly surprised to catch this shot through a window at work during relatively bright daylight, 15 minutes before sunset:

Falcon-9 1/23/24
5 pm pacific 15 minutes before sunset
Long Beach, CA

that being said, the rocket was unimpressive, not distinguishable from a jet from LAX.  50x zoom with my cellphone showed a trail that looked more rocket than jet:

Falcon-9 1/23/24

Later that week...

a neighbor a few houses down from ours has a front yard facing a T-intersection.  this gives the lowest horizon towards Vandenberg in the area.  coincidentally he's a huge spacex fan.  i strolled down the street 2 minutes from lift off and there he was on his front steps with the count down going.  

caught the rocket rising up much sooner than on previous attempts from his front steps.  also it seemed more red on this evening:

Here's a frame from a video as it crossed with it's plume overhead.  a very noisy low light capture, i was going to darken and blur the background, bet elected to own the noise and lighten the background, rendering this impressionist image:

Falcon Crossing Trees at Night

lastly here are two short video clips of the launch at night:

image details:

samsung galaxy S22 ultra

1/23/24

daylight images

5 pm pacific, 15 minutes before sunset

Long Beach, CA

1/28/24

Eastbluff, CA

10 PM pacific

huge solar prominence 1/10/2024

prominence 1/10/2024 21:11.3 UTC (1:11 PM local)

working from home thanks to covid, saw a medium size prominence with a thick short/wide T-shaped structure below it, very bright in the morning.  knew something dynamic was happening...brought my grab and go out at lunch and saw this huge prominence.  later looked like medium prominence with an extension shooting out.  happy to catch a glimpse of what was obviously a very dynamic process.  

Sun Ha 1/10/24 composite (exclusion mode)

Sun Ha 1/10/24 composite

Sun Ha 1/10/2024 21:17.4 prominences

Sun Ha 1/10/2024 21:15.6 full disk double stacked

Sun Ha 1/10/2024 21:19.9 late prominence

Prominence 1/10/24 21:10.0 to 21:20.4
short animation of arch
10 minute pause
short animation of  linear extension

Image details:

Lunt 60/50 double stacked B1200 [later images single stacked]

manual guiding with alt-azm mount

zwo ASI 174MM

20 second captures

best 20 frames

close up of prominence at top of page upsampled 1.5x

East Bluff, CA

1/10/2024

21:10-21:20 UTC

1: 10 PM to 1:20 PM Local

the animation was a challenge due to differing exposures and filters (double vs single stack) as well as field rotation.  

My circa 2010 lunt solar scope had developed a tiny usable field.  finally decided to "look into it" and found the blue blocking filter almost entirely covered by rust

10 bucks for a new blue blocker
and i've got a big clear field again 😎

AI meets Jupiter

 Warning: boring details regarding planetary image processing ahead.  

Planetary imaging is best done these days with a web cam capturing short video segments with as many frames as possible.  software then combines the sharpest frames, discarding frames distorted by atmospheric turbulence.  the "stacked" image is that further sharpened.  too much sharpening produces unsightly artifacts enhancing noise inherent in the imaging process, rather than fine detail.  too little sharpening leaves a blurry image.  recently "AI" techniques have been used to sharpen images or "denoise" sharpened images.  the results have been very impressive, but controversial.  

Here's an image of jupiter with very conservative sharpening.  the image is nice and smooth, but blurry:

Jupiter 12/16/2023 05:20 UTC

next up is an image with aggressive sharpening applied.  fine details are more evident, but there are clearly sharpening artifacts, sometimes referred to as "noise":  

next a conventional "denoise" has been applied, removing the artifact, blurring the image slightly, but preserving some of the sharpening for a smoother sharpened image:

here's what topaz denoise AI did to the sharpened image:

the image is far more aesthetically pleasing than the others, both silky smooth and razor sharp.  this is what has generated the controversy.  there are 2 main objections:

1. the image is too smooth.  
-personally i think this is silly. hubble images of jupter are smooth and sharp at this scale, why not mine?  

2. the AI generates structures that are not real.  
-now this is a problem.  a number of advanced imagers have demonstrated AI processed images with structures that look real, but aren't actually there.  pretty damning criticism, thus all imagers submitting images for scientific work are avoiding AI processing.  i think you can make the case that the false AI structures are the result of pushing the AI processing too far, but now that the objection has been raised, AI processing is widely condemned in the planetary imaging circles.  

Image Details:

i'm submitting images to ALPO so now include image detail in the frame for the submission.  

cloudy nights thread on the topic--mostly civil, only one post was banned (but you can still see it's residue)

more jupiter images 2023

Renowned amateur astronomer Christopher Go appealed to the OCA for images of Jupiter so I've been cranking them out and working on my technique.  

Jupiter 11/26/23 05:53.3 UTC

Jupiter 11/26/23 and Io

Jupiter 11/29/23 05:51.9 UTC 

Jupiter 12/6/23 07:10.6 UTC RGB
"chimney open"

imaging details:

details mostly provided in image annotations

new laptop is allowing much higher capture rates without dropped frames, especially at larger frame sizes ;) 20,000 800x800 frames in 90 seconds!

the downside is the video files are much large so the terabyte hard drive fills up after 3 or 4 imaging sessions :(

processing in autostakkert also takes much longer

tried stacking unsharpened images in winjupos, then sharpening the combined image

the result was horrible

so will probably be doing more sharpening prior to winjupos combine

tried oversharpening final images, then used topaz denoise to remove sharpening artifacts

the result was very impressive

working on planetary autoguiding with firecapture.  having trouble with RA oscillations occasionally throwing the planet way out of the frame (editing these frames out with virtualdub).