BE ALERT FOR MOON HALOES: With the full Moon less than a week away, now is the time to be alert for Moon haloes. Last night in Moray, Scotland, amateur astronomer Alan C. Tough photographed this specimen:Moon halos are formed by ice crystals in high clouds, which catch moonbeams and bend them as shown. The brighter the Moon, the brighter the Moon halo, so any halos this week should be very bright indeed. The Moon is full on Feb. 7th http://www.spaceweather.com/

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ASTROPHOTO-OP: Astrophotographers, ready your cameras. On Friday morning, February 3rd, Comet Garradd (C/2009 P1) will pass approximately 0.5 degrees from globular cluster M92 in Hercules. On Jan. 31st, Rolando Ligustri took this picture of the converging pair using a remotely-controlled 106mm telescope in New Mexico: The ten minute exposure shows the comet's fan-shaped dust tail, which roughly traces the comet's orbit, and its pencil-thin gas tail, which points almost directly away from the sun due to the action of the solar wind.

The star cluster and the comet are both located in the constellation Hercules, high overhead in northern hemisphere skies before sunrise. Sky and Telescope offers a sky map of the comet's path. Observers with computerized GOTO telescopes can track the comet by plugging in orbital elements from the Minor Planet Center.

At the moment, Comet Garradd has an astronomical magnitude of +6.5, invisible to the naked eye but an easy target for backyard telescopes. Forecasters expect it to brighten by a factor of ~2 in the weeks ahead as the comet approaches Earth for a 1.3 AU close encounter in early March. This could be a good time to invest in a Comet Hunter.

BACK TO WORK (UPDATED): After a quiet weekend with no flares of any significance, the sun went back to work on Monday morning and launched a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded the expanding cloud during the early hours of Feb. 6th: Update: New images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) show that this was a frontside event. The explosion occured when a magnetic filament draped over the sun's northeastern limb rose up and snapped. An extreme UV movie from SDO shows the structure lifting off.

PARTING SHOTS: In the past 48 hours, formerly-quiet sunspot AR1410 has turned into a dynamo of activity, rumbling with long-duration solar flares and significantly boosting the sun's extreme ultraviolet output. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed glowing arcs of magnetism over the active region during the early hours of Feb. 8th: The affect of this activity on Earth is minimal because the sunspot is rotating over the sun's northwestern limb. For the next two weeks, the departing 'spot will transit the farside of the sun under the watchful gaze of NASA's twin STEREO probes. The planet most likely to be hit by an eruption during that time is Mercury.

SOLAR WIND: A medium-velocity (450-500 km/s) solar wind stream is blowing past Earth and sparking auroras around the Arctic Circle. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of polar geomagnetic storms during the next 24 hours.


MELTING SNOW MOON: According to folklore, last night's full Moon was the "Snow Moon." John Stetson watched it melt, apparently, as it rose through a layer of relatively warm air over the waters of Cape Elizabeth, Maine: It's a mirage, caused by sun-warmed air overlying the sea surface. The temperature profile turned Earth's atmosphere into a lens, refracting the rays of the rising Moon and distorting the lunar disk as shown. Jules Verne noticed the same kind of distortion in sunrises and sunsets, and famously likened them to an Etruscan Vase.

That's not all: "A green rim can be seen along the top of the moon," points out Stetson. "And there is a red fringe along the bottom." This is also caused by the prismatic action of the low atmosphere.

SUNSPOT OF INTEREST: For the second day in a row, sunspot AR1416 has doubled in size: movie. Moreover, it has developed a "beta-gamma" magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. Any such eruptions this weekend would be Earth directed as the sunspot turns to face our planet.

THE VIEW FROM ABOVE: On Friday, Feb. 10th, NASA released a new set of videos from the International Space Station that officials said was among "the most spectacular night imagery ever taken from space of the United States." After watching the following movie (48 MB), you might find it hard to disagree:


NASA describes the footage: "The sequence of shots was taken January 30, 2012 from 06:13:36 to 06:23:09 GMT, on a pass from northern Mexico to northwest New Brunswick. The video begins looking northeast over Texas, where cities like San Antonio, Houston, and the Dallas/Fort Worth area can be seen. Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and St. Louis are easily distinguished as the ISS continues northeast over the Great Plains. The video concludes with Chicago illuminating the southern edge of Lake Michigan, and auroras shimmering in the distance over Canada."

The auroras in the video appeared on a relatively uneventful night, geomagnetically speaking, when a CME completely missed Earth. Apparently, even the quiet nights are spellbinding onboard the ISS. The eruption hurled a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) away from the sun: SOHO movie. The expanding cloud is not heading for Earth, but in a day or so it might make contact with Venus, which appears to be in the line of fire.

The emergence of a new sunspot at the root of the erupting filament plus the rapid growth of existing sunspot AR1416 could foreshadow more activity in the days ahead.

As solar activity builds toward an expected peak in 2013, a double-barreled sunspot has been doubling in size over the past couple of days and now has the potential to shoot significant eruptions in our direction. It's not certain that active region 1416 will erupt with coronal mass ejections as violent as the blasts that were thrown off by the sun late last month. But it has developed a mixed "beta-gamma" magnetic field that packs enough energy to throw off medium-scale solar flares, SpaceWeather.com reports.

"Any such eruptions this weekend would be Earth-directed as the sunspot turns to face our planet," SpaceWeather's Tony Phillips wrote. Medium-size M-class flares are generally associated with the kinds of solar storms that produce enhanced auroral lights, but not huge inconveniences on Earth. It's the X-class flares you really have to watch out for: That level of solar storming could affect radio communications as well as satellites and electrical grids if the operators of those systems aren't careful.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have a wide array of space assets monitoring the sun, and for now all's quiet on the solar front. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center reported some problems tracking the Advanced Composition Explorer, a satellite that plays a key role in tracking solar storms, but those problems are expected to go away as ACE's orientation with respect to the sun improves.

The heart-shaped coronal mass ejection can be seen at about the 10 o'clock position on this image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. The prediction center's Facebook page reports that on Friday, the sun threw off a slow-moving coronal mass ejection, or CME — in the shape of a heart, no less. (Just in time for Valentine's Day.) "A preliminary model run predicts this CME will arrive, appropriately enough, on Valentine's Day," NOAA reports. So if you're out with your Valentine that night, particularly in Scandinavia or Canada, watch the skies. Even if the earth doesn't move, the aurora might glow.

Meanwhile, the sunspot region that caused all the auroral fireworks last month, known as AR1402, has moved around the far side of the sun. Solar scientists will be interested to see how that region has changed when it comes back into view. We're still a year out from the anticipated peak in the sun's 11-year activity cycle, so there'll be lots of sun-watching ahead. The best ways to keep track on a daily basis is to check in with NOAA's space weather center and SpaceWeather.com.

Update for 4:45 p.m. ET: Speak of the devil ... SolarHam.com reports that AR1402 has indeed made its reappearance on the edge of the sun's disk and was observed firing off C-class solar flares.


Old active region 1402 is currently producing C-Class flares as it approaches the northeast limb. This region will soon rotate back into direct Earth view. Movies by SDO/HMI and GOES SXI.

CHANCE OF AURORAS: NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% of minor geomagnetic storms on Feb. 13-14 in response to the possible arrrival of a CME that left the sun on Feb. 10th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

OLD SUNSPOT RETURNS: Sunspot AR1402, which unleashed an X2-class solar flare on Jan. 27th, has returned after a two-week transit around the far side of the sun. Two weeks of decay have greatly reduced the old active region: The sunspot group, re-numbered AR1419 for its second apparition, is crackling with B- and C-class solar flares. These flares are minor compared to the eruptions of January. The return of AR1402 is mainly significant for nostalgic reasons .]

Current Solar Data (from NOAA) http://www.n3kl.org/sun/noaa.html

AURORA WHIRLPOOL: On Feb. 14-15, Arctic skies erupted with an unexpected display of auroras that veteran observers said was among the best in months. At the height of the event, a US Defense Meteorological Program satellite photographed a whirlpool of Northern Lights over the Bering Sea: The reason for the outburst is still not completely clear. It started on Feb. 14th when a magnetic disturbance rippled around the north pole. No CME was obvious in local solar wind data at the time; the disturbance just happened. Once begun, the display was amplified by the actions of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). The IMF near Earth tipped south, opening a crack in our planet's magnetic defenses. Solar wind poured in and fueled the auroras.

QUIET SUN: Considering the fact that Solar Maximum is only about one year away, the sun is experiencing some remarkable spells of quiet. One of them is underway right now. There have been no significant flares for more than five days, and the sun's X-ray output has flatlined:

What's going on? In fact, solar activity is on the rise. For instance, an X-class solar flare on Jan. 27th triggered the strongest solar radiation storm since 2005. Also, auroras have been sighted recently as far south as Virginia and Oklahoma. The quiet interregnums are a sign that the current solar cycle, while active, is not quite as strong as other solar cycles that preceded it--like a mild hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico. According to this point of view, temporary spells of low activity are to be expected. On the other hand, some researchers believe the quiet holds greater significance; it could foreshadow a major drop in solar activity. This is controversial, however, because forecasting the 11-year solar cycle is still an infant science. Indeed, surprises may be in the offing.

This is the Calm before the Storm / Upgrade...

Why - Can't Y'all hear the Thunder a' gatherin' ?

SOLAR ECLIPSE: Today, the new Moon passed in front of the sun, off-center, producing a partial solar eclipse. The only place to see it was from space. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) sends this picture from geosynchronous orbit approximately 36,000 km above Earth's surface: Using a bank of 16 megapixel cameras, SDO observed the event at multiple extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. Scan the edge of the Moon in this 171 Å image: The little bumps and irregularities you see are lunar mountains backlit by solar plasma.

Beyond the novelty of observing an eclipse from space, these images have practical value to the SDO science team. The sharp edge of the lunar limb helps researchers measure the in-orbit characteristics of the telescope--e.g., how light diffracts around the telescope's optics and filter support grids. Once these are calibrated, it is possible to correct SDO data for instrumental effects and sharpen the images even more than before.

Update: A movie of today's eclipse is now available thanks to Steele Hill, SDO Media Specialist at the Goddard Space Flight Center,

The next solar eclipse visible from Earth's surface occurs on May 20, 2012: video.

AURORAS OVER THE USA: A solar wind stream hit Earth's magnetic field during the late hours of Saturday, Feb. 18th, sparking a G1-class geomagnetic storm. Usually, auroras produced by such a mild storm would be confined to Arctic latitudes. Not this time. Northern Lights spilled across the Canadian border into US states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, North Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota. Bob Conzemius video-recorded the display from the Chippewa National Forest north of Grand Rapids, MN:

Aurora Borealis viewed from the Chippewa National Forest north of Grand Rapids, MN on the evening of February 18, 2012. The last segment was taken on Trout Lake near Bovey, MN. I used Canon 5d Mk II, 24mm f1.4 lens, and 16-35mm f2.8 zoom lens with exposures ranging from 6 seconds to 20 seconds.

The auroral event came from a coronal high speed stream with a southward-pointing magnetic field. The ensuing geomagnetic storm reached minor levels with Kp=5 at its peak, when the auroral oval was directly overhead at latitude 47 degrees N. In Nebraska "I saw auroras on and off for approximately 2 hours from around 9pm to 11pm local time," reports Chris Allington of Crofton, NE. "There was a brief spell where color was visible to the eye with rays and bands." Allington stitched together a series of 20s exposures to create this movie.

At the height of the display, researchers at the Poker Flats Research Range outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, launched a suborbital rocket to investigate how auroras affect GPS systems. Several photographers in the area caught the rocket flying into the Northern Lights.

The surprising display might have been amplified by the action of a co-rotating interaction region or "CIR." CIRs are transition zones between fast and slow solar wind streams. Solar wind plasma piles up in these regions, producing density gradients and shock waves that do a good job of sparking auroras. Local solar wind data suggest that Earth moved through a CIR around 1500 UT on Feb. 18th.