Solar activity this month: February 2025

Sydney City Skywatchers members have been busy safely observing solar activity. We are in solar maximum so there is a lot of activity to record. Here are two examples from Ann Cairns and Garry Dalrymple, who use very different methods of observing and recording their observations.

Ann uses SeeStar S50 to observe and photograph solar images during the day and deep sky objects and the Moon at night. Ann’s images are shown above, here are her observations (Sun 16 Feb 2025):

SeeStar S50 image of the Sun, 16 Feb, 11:49am AEDT, A. Cairns

I have a great phone app called Clear Outside that has experimental features that predict seeing as well as regular cloud cover quite accurately anywhere in the world. It is one of my most used apps on my phone along with BOM! I thought you might be interested in some photos I took on Sunday (16 Feb 2025)  that have some pretty nice sunspots but also show the rotation of the sun. 

The nice thing about the SeeStar S50 is you can sit away from the scope a bit…in the shade

SeeStar S50 image of the Sun, 16 Feb, 01:55pm AEDT, A. Cairns

Garry uses a 76mm Newtonian telescope with a white light filter. Through this he can see sunspots, but no flares or filaments. When he observes an ellipse around a spot on the sun this is a sunspot with a Penumbra, and a plain dot is one without a Penumbra. Garry’s observations (Wed 19 Feb 2025):

There are currently a few sunspots up at the moment,( 08 groups, 09 penumbrated, 03 un-penumbrated and a total of 12 ) slightly less in number than on Monday and Tuesday, but, as of 12.30 I’m finding that the seeing is very good, probably due to the air over the Sydney basin coming from further West and North.      The individual sunspots that I’m seeing (76mm) are not that big, but you might be able to resolve details much closer to theoretical limits today than has been possible in some of the past (hazy) weeks.

IMPORTANT: It is always necessary to take precautions when solar viewing. Never look at the Sun with your eyes, through sunglasses or any other device that does not have a suitable/authorised filter. Find out how to view the Sun safely by opening this link.