Today's H-alpha #Sun in good seeing conditions at 17:00 UTC.
There are not many days on which H-alpha views of the Sun include prominences that visualize the magnetic field lines above active regions particularly well, but today is definitely one of those days.
A view of the #Sun today in hydrogen-alpha light under good seeing conditions. The combined complex of AR's 3664 and 3558 (below center) is a real monster with a complex 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field configuration. It has developed rapidly in the last 24 hours and is worth watching.
There was also a beautiful prominence on the Sun's southeast limb. Again, good seeing allowed for high magnification and the extraction of a lot of detail.
Had one hour of clear sky in the morning here in Heidelberg and decided to use it wisely - here is an image of the sun in the very specific H-Alpha wavelength.
Did the classic mistake and buy new gear, had to wait weeks for the sky to clear...
Want to Safely Watch the Sun with a Large Group? Get a Disco Ball
You should never look at the Sun with unprotected eyes, especially with a telescope or binoculars. The upcoming solar eclipses and high sunspot activity make this a great time to observe the Sun, especially for large groups of people at the same time. How can you safely show the changing Sun to a large group of people without having them line up forever or a lot of equipment? Get a disco ball. Set up a disco ball in a sunlit room, and it'll project tiny images of the Sun onto the walls. It'll show the state of a solar eclipse, or the presence of sunspots, and allow dozens of people to see it simultaneously.
India Follows its Lunar Mission by Sending a Spacecraft to the Sun
Amid its Chandrayaan-3 mission to the Moon, India launched another satellite headed towards the Sun. The spacecraft, called Aditya-L1, is bound for the Earth-Sun L1 Lagrange Point, located 1.5 million km from Earth. This will give it a perfect perspective to watch the Sun, similar to NASA's SOHO mission. It will reach its destination in about three months and then use seven instruments to observe the Sun, its atmosphere, and the solar environment.