Images Sunspot 11166

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Here are three pictures of sunspot group 11166 taken on 4, 7, and 8 March 2011.

Sunspot Designations

Sunspots and Active Regions are numbered by the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and started on 5th January 1972.  These numbers now exceed 10000 but often the first or the first two digits are omitted.  The designations of current sunspots can be found on the SOHO site.  A most useful archive of diagrams of the Sun showing the positions and designations of sunspots on a daily basis right back to January 1992 is available from The Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii.  This link will take you to their archive page from where you can select a given image by date or browse by month.  I find this particularly useful if I have imaged an interesting spot after some days of cloud, and I can look back and see when the spot appeared.  The Institute also has recent pictures of the Sun's activity in a number of formats.

	Sunspot group 11166 taken when it had just appeared around the western limb. Date and Time: 4 March 2011, 14:24 UT Camera: DMK 21AF04 Telescope: ETX125 at prime focus Capture: ICCapture. 1/367", gain 668, 3600 frames Processing: Registax. 95 frames stacked. Wavelets 1,2 = 10, histogram 6-180
	Here is the same group taken 3 days later as it approached the centre of the disc.  When you allow for the foreshortening of the perspective in the picture above, it is difficult to see much diffence. Date and Time: 7 March 2011, 14:01 UT Camera: DMK 21AF04 Telescope: ETX125 Capture: ICCapture. 1/618", gain 285, 1915 frames Processing: Registax. 96 frames stacked. Wavelets 1-2 = 10, histogram 36-192
	Here it is taken the next day.  This picture was taken with my LX200, but I have rescaled the picture to be the same as the other pictures above.  You can see the original picture by moving your mouse pointer over the image. Date and Time: 8 March 2011, 11:50 UT Camera: DMK 21AF04 Telescope: LX200 Capture: ICCapture. 1/876", gain 445, 3600 frames Processing: Registax. 109 frames stacked. Wavelets 1-2 = 10, histogram 40-255

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