WARNING! The Sun is extremely dangerous. Looking at it
with any sort of optical aid will result in instant blindness.
Look here to see how I do it.
The activity of the Sun has continued to increase slowly through 2021. However I have not seen spots of significant size before September.
The thumbnails below will take you to a page of pictures taken on the date given. On those pages moving your mouse pointer over the picture of the full Sun will show you the number designations of the spots.
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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 no longer be found on the SOHO site, but they can be obtained from NOAA. Sadly the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii no longer maintains its archive. |
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7th September 2021. These are the first good selection of spots I have noticed this year but I have not had the opportunities to watch the Sun much so far. |
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21st December 2021. The Sun is steadily becoming more active. I was made aware of a nice line of them on 20th December at a meeting of the Mexborough & Swinton Astronomical Society and I was lucky to get clear skies briefly the following morning. The results are here. |