AR 3561

[mozy]

Oh it wasn't even this region that flared

[Jesterface23]

Region 3561 actually gave us a M1.6-ish flare.

[SpaceWeather5464]

9 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

If you look at suvi both regions appear to flare. I just can’t tell (yet) which flared more

What do you mean? No launch? I can see movement in suvi 195  

It was AR 3559 that flared the most.

[hamateur 1953]

3561 has shown remarkable encabulation in the recent day.  

[Jay-B]

Why is this sunspot labeled a beta? There is not a clear cut line to separate the north and south magnetic areas?

[MinYoongi]

48 minutes ago, Jay-B said:

Why is this sunspot labeled a beta? There is not a clear cut line to separate the north and south magnetic areas?

Where is it labeled a beta? here, noaa, somewhere else´?

[Jay-B]

It is labeled a beta on this website

Also, it looks like there are 2 deltas in the latest pictures on the sunspot regions page on this website for this AR. 

[MinYoongi]

3 minutes ago, Jay-B said:

It is labeled a beta on this website

Also, it looks like there are 2 deltas in the latest pictures on the sunspot regions page on this website for this AR. 

I dont know where exactly SWL pulls the classifications, but mistakes happen  

[Vancanneyt Sander]

50 minuten geleden, MinYoongi zei:

I dont know where exactly SWL pulls the classifications, but mistakes happen  

From SWPC. 
and yes SWPC does sometimes have other classifications, but keep in mind sunspot regions can change fast so the magnetic classification can be different when looking at imagery. That’s why it’s good to learn how to do the classification for yourselves. 

looking at the region it’s BGD

[MinYoongi]

i emphasize what Sander just said.

[SpaceWeather5464]

M class flare every hour, When will this region produce something powerful?

[Vancanneyt Sander]

3 minuten geleden, SpaceWeather5464 zei:

M class flare every hour, When will this region produce something powerful?

When it gets quieter 😜 because it flares every hour above M-level it just fails to build up enough energy for strong long duration events. Let’s hope things change for the good…

[MinYoongi]

Just now, Vancanneyt Sander said:

When it gets quieter 😜 because it flares every hour above M-level it just fails to build up enough energy for strong long duration events. Let’s hope things change for the good…

Is that really how it works? I wondered alot of times if they have to "charge" up for LDE / powerful events. 

btw : is the region losing complexity?

[SpaceWeather5464]

1 minute ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

When it gets quieter 😜 because it flares every hour above M-level it just fails to build up enough energy for strong long duration events. Let’s hope things change for the good…

There has been some rare times where the sunspot is constantly flaring, but then it produces a powerful flare, I guess it’s because the magnetic field gets twisted?

[Vancanneyt Sander]

10 minuten geleden, SpaceWeather5464 zei:

There has been some rare times where the sunspot is constantly flaring, but then it produces a powerful flare, I guess it’s because the magnetic field gets twisted?

Well, regions continuously evolve so it can always become one that produces long duration events eventually as the region further develops. Currently it’s only puff puff. If the deltas get stronger and magnetic shear increases, greater things will be possible.

[SpaceWeather5464]

5 minutes ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

Well, regions continuously evolve so it can always become one that produces long duration events eventually as the region further develops. Currently it’s only puff puff. If the deltas get stronger and magnetic shear increases, greater things will be possible.

Thanks 😊. Is it possible to detect magnetic shear on SDO?

[Vancanneyt Sander]

13 minuten geleden, SpaceWeather5464 zei:

Thanks 😊. Is it possible to detect magnetic shear on SDO?

A bit yeah, just look at the regions during the strongest solar flares and you’ll see better what to look for 😉. For example the region we highlighted in our help article “magnetic classification of sunspots” has some big deltas with magnetic shear present, if those big deltas would come closer to the other umbra of opposite polarity shear increases further.

[SpaceWeather5464]

57 minutes ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

A bit yeah, just look at the regions during the strongest solar flares and you’ll see better what to look for 😉. For example the region we highlighted in our help article “magnetic classification of sunspots” has some big deltas with magnetic shear present, if those big deltas would come closer to the other umbra of opposite polarity shear increases further.

Thanks 😊 

[Philalethes]

2 hours ago, SpaceWeather5464 said:

Thanks 😊. Is it possible to detect magnetic shear on SDO?

Like Sander says you can get a feel for it by looking at examples, but to get a more accurate idea I believe you need to look at the field lines in more detail, since the shear is determined by how different such lines interact with each other. If you look at e.g. this little piece of info, you can get a good idea of what it really means. In short, it's essentially when you have field lines parallel to the separation between two polarities, rather than across that separation (as when the field lines are connection those two separate polarities); this leads to a "shearing" between the lines, because given the separation of polarities this means that those lines are in the opposite direction of each other (hence the analogy to mechanical shearing).

Typically the field seeks to rearrange itself into more magnetically stable configurations more slowly and more gently, but if the underlying field is moving in such a way as to force shearing lines together, then you can suddenly get magnetic reconnection across those separate polarities, which not only releases a lot of energy itself, but can also trigger a cascade of reconnections, not entirely unlike dominoes falling; large flares often seem to occur in this manner, if I'm not mistaken.

Sadly I don't know of any data source which provides maps like the one above, which would actually be really useful for monitoring active regions. Here you can see another example of the data produced by the same magnetograph, but those particular images are no longer being produced. As far as I'm aware it used the same principles as HMI (which is on SDO) and a wide variety of other Solar magnetographs, so I'm not sure if there was something special about it that allowed for that type of resolution for the field lines, or whether no one simply bothers to make them from the underlying data; or maybe they do make them or something like them and I just haven't been able to find them. The closest thing I can think of are the field lines produced on the SDO imagery marked PFSS (Potential Field Source Surface), but those are on a much larger scale than what would be ideal to see the field lines within single regions; I know HMI contains a ton of different publicly available data series that haven't been made into any easily digestible visualization like the SDO imagery, so maybe there is something in there that could be used to do this, or maybe not. I for one would love to have such maps to look at at least, so if anyone knows of any, feel free to share.

Edited January 23 by Philalethes
typo

[SpaceWeather5464]

28 minutes ago, Philalethes said:

Like Sander says you can get a feel for it by looking at examples, but to get a more accurate idea I believe you need to look at the field lines in more detail, since the shear is determined by how different such lines interact with each other. If you look at e.g. this little piece of info, you can get a good idea of what it really means. In short, it's essentially when you have field lines parallel to the separation between two polarities, rather than across that separation (as when the field lines are connection those two separate polarities); this leads to a "shearing" between the lines, because given the separation of polarities this means that those lines are in the opposite direction of each other (hence the analogy to mechanical shearing).

Typically the field seeks to rearrange itself into more magnetically stable configurations more slowly and more gently, but if the underlying field is moving in such a way as to force shearing lines together, then you can suddenly get magnetic reconnection across those separate polarities, which not only releases a lot of energy itself, but can also trigger a cascade of reconnections, not entirely unlike dominoes falling; large flares often seem to occur in this manner, if I'm not mistaken.

Sadly I don't know of any data source which provides maps like the one above, which would actually be really useful for monitoring active regions. Here you can see another example of the data produced by the same magnetograph, but those particular images are no longer being produced. As far as I'm aware it used the same principles as HMI (which is on SDO) and a wide variety of other Solar magnetographs, so I'm not sure if there was something special about it that allowed for that type of resolution for the field lines, or whether no one simply bothers to make them from the underlying data; or maybe they do make them or something like them and I just haven't been able to find them. The closest thing I can think of are the field lines produced on the SDO imagery marked PFSS (Potential Field Source Surface), but those are on a much larger scale than what would be ideal to see the field lines within single regions; I know HMI contains a ton of different publicly available data series that haven't been made into any easily digestible visualization like the SDO imagery, so maybe there is something in there that could be used to do this, or maybe not. I for one would love to have such maps to look at at least, so if anyone knows of any, feel free to share.

Thank you for this information. Were do you find real time PFSS SDO images?

[Philalethes]

44 minutes ago, SpaceWeather5464 said:

Thank you for this information. Were do you find real time PFSS SDO images?

I don't think there's anything more live than what they publish on their data page (here, which I assume you already know). Not sure how often those are updated, but I see that last was ~13 hours ago or so, so definitely not very real-time.

[SpaceWeather5464]

17 minutes ago, Philalethes said:

I don't think there's anything more live than what they publish on their data page (here, which I assume you already know). Not sure how often those are updated, but I see that last was ~13 hours ago or so, so definitely not very real-time.

I found it at data links they have PFSS images there.

[Philalethes]

5 minutes ago, SpaceWeather5464 said:

I found it at data links they have PFSS images there.

Yeah, that's what I meant, but if you look at the timestamp you'll notice that they're not that fresh (now they're ~14 hours old). If you consider that sufficiently real-time, then great.

[Adrian Kobyłecki]

Another M flare

[SpaceWeather5464]

Another M1. I was expecting something more than that since it had been quiet for some hours now.