Spotting the Spots

As the sky was pretty well clear of clouds yesterday I thought it a good opportunity to photograph the Sun. I tried at midday as that meant I would be looking through the least amount of the Earth's atmosphere to give the clearest possible photo. Unfortunately that meant the Sun was very high in the sky and I couldn't get a proper view through the camera viewfinder with the camera pointing up at such a steep angle. I tried again at 3 p.m. and this time managed to line the camera up without too much difficulty. When visiting the excellent SpaceWeather web site I noticed there were several Sunspots showing. How many would my simple equipment capture?



All of them, well, all the major parts of each visible Sunspot. Sunspots are numbered consecutively as they are observed. They are give an AR number. (AR = Active Region)



Some regions start small and then peter out so it is possible that there can be gaps in AR numbers of those in view at any one time. Even with a 400mm telephoto lens the Sun takes up a small section of a photograph so the above are cropped sections. The most important safety feature used when directly observing the Sun is the use of a Solar filter which is designed to cut the brilliance down to a safe level.