Huge solar flare

[Skywatcher]

Taken on Saturday with my solar scope - not brilliant but imaging through this scope is a complete nightmare - infact some think it was desined to stop people imaging through it.

This was present Saturday morning and is the first sign of the Sun waking up after a looong sleep. It is huge!!!! and is easily 20 times bigger than the earth - and thats just the bit you can see - his is looping around from the other side!

[Watchinherskip]

Hey Chris, can't see it here at work, but will check it out when I get home. Stinking websense!

[Dawn]

How do you get those pictures because Patrick Moore told me never to look at the sun through a telescope.

[Shogun]

What does a solar flare do to our weather? I know it will affect it somehow.

[Keith]

Staggering image! I can't grasp the scale it's just mind blowing

[goofygal]

How do you get those pictures because Patrick Moore told me never to look at the sun through a telescope.

I thought so too although I think I remember him showing us how to see flares like this using some card once

[Claire]

The sizing is truly mindblowing. 20 times bigger than the Earth? Wow!

[lexie]

so hard to comprehend the scale

[cosmicray]

Is there anyway to see this kind of thing without all the expensive kit?

[Skywatcher]

No sorry cosmicray unless you pop along to a local astronomy club and I'm sure they will have a solar telescope , which is what you need to observe the sun. As said above NEVER look at the sun even with the naked eye - with a telescope you will cause blindness instantly - these solar telescopes are highly sophisticated bits of kit - they used to sell for thousands but this one is sold for about £300 and shows just the hydrogen -alpha emission from the sun - focussing the webcam to is is a total nightmare and this was the best I got even after about 20minutes of fiddling - also it was changing so much it was hard to pin down