Sunrise Photograph of Angry Sunspot : Big Pic

Aug. 3, 2010 -- On Sunday, the sun underwent a complex magnetic eruption triggered by a flare near a sunspot (designated "sunspot 1092"). Space observatories were able to see the C3-class flare, causing a filament (an extended loop of magnetic field lines filled with cooler plasma) 100,000 kilometers away to erupt at the same time.

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It turns out that sunspot 1092 is such a prominent dark feature on the solar photosphere that it can also be seen on Earth, at sunrise, without having to use a special solar filter or telescope.

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Seen here rising above Blairgowrie, a suburb if Johannesburg, South Africa over the weekend, sunspot 1092 can be clearly seen in the lower right-hand segment of the solar disk. This stunning photograph (and the zoomed version below) was taken by Oleg Toumilovitch who explains why the sunspot can be seen so easily:

"During the first few minutes of the sunrise or the last minutes of the sunset, only a fraction of the sunlight makes its way to the observer -- mostly from the red part of visible spectrum," he said.

"During this time large sunspots can be seen without a special solar filter, but precautions must still be taken and a live image on the screen must be used instead of an optical viewfinder."

In short, DO NOT look at the sun directly at any time of the day by naked eye or though the viewfinder of a camera or telescope.

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After the Sunday solar eruption, skywatchers at high latitudes are on the look out for signs of the coronal mass ejection (CME) that was fired in the direction of Earth shortly after the flare and filament eruption. It is predicted the magnetic "bubble" of energetic solar particles will hit us today, potentially generating some beautiful auroral displays as these particles rain down through our atmosphere.

Images courtesy of Oleg Toumilovitch, Astronomical.co.za.

-- Ian O'Neill, Discovery News