Armchair Observations

[fealeybob14]

Not sure if there has been a past topic that would be a home for this post but missions such as SOHO https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/realtime-update.html continue to provide useful visual ephemerides of the sun and inner solar system objects.  Daily images provide current sunspot locations for example.  Images from August 21 provided context for what we observed during totality.  The LASCO C3 observations viewed in the SOHO Movie theater https://sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/soho_movie_theater for the last week for example shows (on Sept 26th) what appears to be a tiny comet like body vaporizing into the sun and then the planet Mercury (on Sept 28th) as it swings in approaching superior conjunction.  (to see this, highlight the LASCO C3 observations and put in the dates 2017-09-26 to 2017-10-06 and play the images at a fast rate).  A few CME's also appear during this period.

[fealeybob14]

An interesting SOHO C3 image from this morning.

[fealeybob14]

Watch the short period comet 96P/Machholz swing around the sun over the last 3 days using the SOHO movie theater images https://sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/soho_movie_theater.  Jupiter is also in view as it emerges from behind the sun.  Choose the LASCO C3 images and put in the dates 2017-10-26 to 2017-10-29 in the above link page.  A still from yesterday is shown below.

[fealeybob14]

Venus, moving towards superior conjunction has now entered the fov of LASCO C3 (below image) as the star Antares is leaving! 

[fealeybob14]

The planet Venus at superior conjunction as it appears today in the fov of SOHO LASCO C2 https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c2/512/

[fealeybob14]

Ugh!!!  I was foolish to rely on one ‘armchair observing site’ (SOHO) and so almost entirely missed the sunspot group (thanks Randy for kindly pointing it out to me yesterday!) pictured below (red arrow).  A reflection artifact (white arrow) also was noted while using the SteadyPix I phone adapter.
I had last observed the sun around Jan 25th or so and didn’t see any spots.  Nor did SOHO and so I relied on the latter over the last 2 weeks to inform me about sunspots.  I hadn’t noticed the last SOHO sun image was dated Jan 28th.  Other sources such as Space Weather http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/space-weather-enthusiasts (thanks Mike C) show the current view of the visible sun, with the spots still visible.  The I-phone image did not do justice to the telescope appearance!

[fealeybob14]

However, to the SOHO site's credit, they have posted a link, https://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/newsite/images.html ,to current images while they work on updating the SOHO web access to images and videos. 
Links to many other solar imagery and solar-terrestrial observations are found on the above site as well.

[fealeybob14]

A nice article on the quiet sun by Bob Henson of Weather Underground is presented here: https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Weirdly-Quiet-Sun-May-Get-Even-Quieter-and-BTW-Earth-Still-Warming
 

[fealeybob14]

There is a large sunspot rotating into view according to SOHO https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/hmi_igr/512/ and Space weather https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/space-weather-enthusiasts websites.

[fealeybob14]

Don't know when we'll see the sun again so for now I'll post this image of an impressive sunspot from the SOHO website https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/hmi_igr/512/ !

[fealeybob14]

That sunspot is not huge ... but it's bigger than Earth!

[fealeybob14]

At last some sunshine!  The image below compares the current SOHO sun with an image made about 11:30 am this morning using the ORION Starblast with solar filter, a 20 mm eyepiece and my I-phone 6.

[Luka]

Bob, I was out observing that sunspot too, maybe 12:15, or so. I recall it had a "stripe" across the middle, looking a bit like an "8"  when I saw it. I wanted to sketch it or image it, but after my kids all had a look, they were hungry. And I thought feeding them would be more important.  I really should put my phone adapter with the eyepieces!

[fealeybob14]

Thanks Luka!  Yes higher power (via a 7 mm eyepiece) even with the Starblast showed more detail in the sunspot as you describe.  A not so great closeup pic of the sunspot is shown below using Starblast, the 7 mm eyepiece and I-phone 6.

[fealeybob14]

Hey! Maybe the sun is waking up a bit!  We now have two sizable sunspots to enjoy.  Image below taken 5/7/2019 with my Starblast 4.5 inch reflector using a 20 mm eyepiece and Orion sun filter, Orion 'Steady Pix Quick Smartphone Adapter' and an I-Phone 6 using the Camera+ app.