Armchair Observations

[fealeybob14]

The links above seem to be down.  Link to spaceweather.com instead. https://spaceweather.com/

[fealeybob14]

Wow!  The comet in our morning skies is awesome in 7 x 50 binoculars.  One has to have clear, relatively dark skies and a good view of the northeastern sky fairly close to the horizon.  At present the best viewing times are between 3:30 to 4:30 am.  There have been many comet photos published (see https://spaceweather.com/).  Looking forward to evening views of the comet in the NW skies in the coming weeks.

[fealeybob14]

Please see the photos of our illustrious member Josef of comet neowise here: https://rochesterskies.org/comet-c-2020-f3-neowise-seen-early-july/

[fealeybob14]

Was checking out the sun 2 days ago and noticed a new sunspot seen here on the SOHO website.https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/hmi_igr/512/
Note as this site updates daily positions of sunspots etc. will change.  Currently, Aug 2nd no sunspots are visible.

[fealeybob14]

But hey it's a day later (August 3rd) and it appears another sunspot is coming into view! https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/hmi_igr/512/

[Luka]

Now that I'm working from home more, I'll have to make time to observe these. Maybe even sketch or image some.

[fealeybob14]

That would be neat Luka, although the sunspots are pretty sparse these days! 
Had a nice armchair observation this am between 3:45 am and 4:15 am while looking out our living room picture window ... some Perseids of course!  In a patch of sky looking NNE (from Polaris over to Capella diagonally), I observed 8 nice meteors, all likely Perseids based on their trajectory.

[fealeybob14]

Mercury, heading towards superior conjunction, appears in this animated SOHO C3 field of view. https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c3.gif
(If you wait for all the images from 8/8 to 8/13 to load, you will then see a repeated, faster animation!).  The sequence updates itself daily (or possibly with each new image taken).

[fealeybob14]

Looks like several coronal mass ejections have happened in the last 2 to 3 days.  Spaceweather https://spaceweather.com/ has a nice description of the latest one.  (Note, this site changes it's reports daily, so link to the archive file date that this was posted)!

[fealeybob14]

A new sunspot group has appeared today!  Will try to get a Starblast image to compare with SOHO's!

[fealeybob14]

Mercury is exiting the SOHO C3 fov. https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c3.gif
EDIT.  And watch this tiny comet dive into the sun! https://spaceweather.com/

 

[fealeybob14]

Spaceweather https://spaceweather.com/ from today (Sept 8th) has a neat picture of Mars and the moon at sunrise. Photo and details here: https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=167889
And check out what appears to be several coronal mass ejections captured on C2 SOHO imaging over the last 2 days. https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c2.gif

[fealeybob14]

Spaceweather, https://spaceweather.com/ has an interesting note and photo of the current sunspot (2776) that's easily visible at this time.

[fealeybob14]

Watch the sun eject a 'smoke ring' shaped CME on today's spaceweather https://spaceweather.com/ page.  The movie is from the C3 camera of SOHO https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c3.gif.  Just before the CME a small comet is seen on its way to crash into the sun! Here is the incoming comet on the C2 camera! https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c2.gif.

[fealeybob14]

A new sunspot group (AR27778) has just appeared on the sun since yesterday!  It bears watching to see if significant daily changes are evident and should be interesting to see in appropriately sun-filtered small telescopes. (Hoping to get a photo this week!)