5/15/24 surreal sunset in front of clouds?!

Driving home the other night i caught something odd out of the corner of my eye at sunset:  the horizon was bright orange with the setting sun lighting up a thin cloud.  below that a thick bank of dark clouds went down to the horizon.  in front of that was the grapefruit pink disk of the setting sun.  

WAIT, IN FRONT OF THE CLOUDS?!

I pulled over and snapped these pics with my phone (click for larger size):

captured these images at back bay park overlook, as amazed by the sight as by the fact that joggers and cyclists passed by paying no attention. 

a woman wearing a white baseball cap power-walked by with her eyes down at her phone. i gestured to the horizon and said "have you seen it?"

she looked up at me like i was a lunatic (guilty), looked back down at her phone, and kept walking :(

simple explanation is that the sun is shining through the clouds. 
i have a feeling there's a bit more going on: the top of the grey cloud bank looks just too dark and thick to let the sun through, but lower down, at the level of the sun it seems to lighten a bit. 
i'm thinking the refracted sun is passing through a lighter layer of clouds/fog lower down.

image details:
5/15/24 7:42 pm local
backbay park overlook (easbluff and jamboree), newport beach, ca
samsung galaxy S22 ultra

4/8/24 solar eclipse chromosphere animation (pretty red stuff)

Chromosphere
total solar eclipse (late totality)
4/8/2024 1:53:58 pm local
eastern limb up

The chromosphere is the layer of red hydrogen plasma that sits above the photosphere--the bright surface of the sun that emits the full spectrum.  during a total solar eclipse the photosphere is completely blocked, allowing one to see red arcs of hydrogen plasma jutting off the side of the sun with the naked eye.  Here are a series of images at short exposure, showing the chromosphere, without the extended outer corona of the sun or the brilliant photosphere.  

Fortunately, I previewed Ha images of the sun shortly before the eclipse, so knew to look for the red arc on the lower right (see video) towards the end of totality.  It was spectacular visually, even through light clouds.  

Be sure to click on full size.

Imaging details:
4/8/24 
Russellville, AR

35 deg 18.366 min N

93 deg 7.962  min W

~1:50-1:54 PM local
nikon D850
AF-S NIKKOR 300mm f/4E PF ED VR
f/5.6, iso 100, 1/6400-1/800 sec exposure
skywatcher star adventurer tracking mount
eclipse orchestrator for automated image capture
oriented solar north up now.  

processing notes:

matched the exposures in photoshop camera raw to 1/3200 sec

aligned the frames on the corona manually so the moon is moving across the stationary sun

because it was much harder to do than auto align on the moon, so why not?

shot continuously at 2 second intervals in the beginning and end.  mid eclipse images were spaced further out due to longer exposures, so i used the "tween" function in photoshop to give a smoother transition between frames (adjusting the number of interpolated frames to the elapsed time).  

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 😎