Astronomy last night and this afternoon
I took my students out a few times last night. I had them sketch sunspots at the start of class, did some celestial sphere interpretive dance during class, and at the end of class took them out to see Venus and Saturn. Here's the current state of Venus:
And putting into context with my weekly venus photos at the same scale:
Venus is just three weeks from transiting the sun on Tuesday, June 5.
As for the sun itself, I took a new photo this afternoon. Actually, I typically take a couple of dozen photos of any of these things, picking the clearest one based on the luck of atmospheric turbulence, steadiness of my hand, and the camera's autofocus. Anyway, here is a closeup of the big sunspot as it approaches the sun's limb:
Just for fun, I added an Earth, more or less to scale. And some bogus yellow color.
And finally, here is the sun today:
There seem to be some new develoments on the left half of the visible disk of the sun today. Just for fun, I think I'll put some huge versions of the latest three solar photos under a cut to show the rotation of the sun, and the changes in the sunspots:
May 11
May 12 was cloudy
May 13
May 14
May 15
And putting into context with my weekly venus photos at the same scale:
Venus is just three weeks from transiting the sun on Tuesday, June 5.
As for the sun itself, I took a new photo this afternoon. Actually, I typically take a couple of dozen photos of any of these things, picking the clearest one based on the luck of atmospheric turbulence, steadiness of my hand, and the camera's autofocus. Anyway, here is a closeup of the big sunspot as it approaches the sun's limb:
Just for fun, I added an Earth, more or less to scale. And some bogus yellow color.
And finally, here is the sun today:
There seem to be some new develoments on the left half of the visible disk of the sun today. Just for fun, I think I'll put some huge versions of the latest three solar photos under a cut to show the rotation of the sun, and the changes in the sunspots:
May 11
May 12 was cloudy
May 13
May 14
May 15