Patch Fire Sun
During the last while, we have been surrounded by wild fires. One of the fires, named after the area in which the fire was burning…Patch Canyon, was producing huge plumbs of smoke. Smoke from this particular fire was covering the valley and on 15 Aug, was at its worst. At about 1830, I had walked out to look at the smoke and noticed the sun, which looked a bit eerie. The scene being interesting, I grabbed a camera and took a series of photos. While taking the photos, I noticed a spot on the sun and thought, “Nuts, I have some kind of stuff on the lens or sensor.” But, as I continued to take photos, I noticed the spot remained in the same position on the sun. Ah Ha! I wondered, could this really be a sunspot? Checking the NASA and SoHO websites, I found that I had actually captured two sunspots; Numbers 1817 and 1818 – they are difficult to see on this photo, but they are visible on the full size, full resolution image. What I found interesting is that #1818 is actually larger than the earth. Below is an image of sunspots as seen on today’s SoHO images. Notice the graphic of the earth in relation to any of the sunspots…these are enormous. Photo: 300mm, 1/3200 sec @ f 5.6, ISO 160.
SoHO Image: 2013-08-22_09-14-29
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