2 minutes ago, Solar_Marcel said:

 

woah wow wow wow...

that is... big

@MinYoongi i am going to try to edit the 4096x4096 picture again, so we have semi nice pictures of that spot(s)

 Nice

12 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

 Nice

I dont see any other Spots (yet) but it looks impressive!

Edited February 18, 20241 yr by Solar_Marcel

5 minutes ago, Solar_Marcel said:

I dont see any other Spots (yet) but it looks impressive!

Very!!   Edit. I just looked at 131 ang and don’t see too much yet however perhaps some transequatorial stuff.  

Edited February 18, 20241 yr by hamateur 1953
131 check

look at the loops... magnificent
also its bright like a city at night

 

That spot is an absolute unit, and given the loops, it seems pretty complex as well. 

i dont know if loops signify any complexity

Oh, whoops, I thought they did lol, especially since 3536 also had incredible loops and managed to produce a major X5 flare. Oh well, guess we will have to wait and see more of this region 

the best sign for complexity when evaluating a limb region are flares  thats pretty frustrating but imagery is tricky around the limbs so thats the only reliable measurement you can go after

42 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

the best sign for complexity when evaluating a limb region are flares  thats pretty frustrating but imagery is tricky around the limbs so thats the only reliable measurement you can go after

I would certainly agree there.  It can be disappointing sometimes too.  Even worse, huge cmes can and often do result in reorganization by the time they reach us.  It sucks, but hey, we still have at least two, perhaps three more years of entertainment! 

It could be a very large alpha sunspot.

Looks big but simple to me, maybe just a big alpha. Hope it develops

1 hour ago, Fishaxolotl said:

Oh, whoops, I thought they did lol, especially since 3536 also had incredible loops and managed to produce a major X5 flare. Oh well, guess we will have to wait and see more of this region 

Transequatorial loops (TL's) are much more abundant at solar maximum. I don't remember how to describe the process in correct terms, but in a sense our Sun is trying to regain equilibrium. That's the one analogy I can think of.

Large coronal loops often connect multiple regions together along with coronal holes. Magnetohydrodynamics (MDH) are an important key when it comes to their role in the solar dynamo (I'm still pretty clueless when it comes to MDH 😅). 

Red lines in image represent TL's.

Green/Blue lines are from connecting AR's and CH.

The region formed at some point on the far side, so it is fairly new

3 hours ago, Solar_Marcel said:

I dont see any other Spots (yet) but it looks impressive!

Quote

Is that an act? 😉

2 hours ago, Parabolic said:

Transequatorial loops (TL's) are much more abundant at solar maximum. I don't remember how to describe the process in correct terms, but in a sense our Sun is trying to regain equilibrium. That's the one analogy I can think of.

Large coronal loops often connect multiple regions together along with coronal holes. Magnetohydrodynamics (MDH) are an important key when it comes to their role in the solar dynamo (I'm still pretty clueless when it comes to MDH 😅). 

Red lines in image represent TL's.

Green/Blue lines are from connecting AR's and CH.

Otter likes again @Parabolic but we learn new stuff every day. Tnx fer the input.  I would have expected it given the latitude drops prevailing at or near Solar max but didn’t think about it until  I saw what I believed were cross connecting polarities.    Really cool graphic btw!!

Edited February 18, 20241 yr by hamateur 1953
Graphic kudos

there could be trailing stuff behind the large spot

there are surely some trailing spots. arcs of flares go beyond the limb, so there is some magnetical interaction

4 hours ago, Solar_Marcel said:

I dont see any other Spots (yet) but it looks impressive!

It's massive.

1 hour ago, tniickck said:

there are surely some trailing spots. arcs of flares go beyond the limb, so there is some magnetical interaction

i already can see a glimpse of trailing spots on the latest HMIIC/HMIIF pictures. time will tell but better this region has something to impress us. hopefully its not just a big impressive lonely spot, and the trailing stuff better be good, haha

6 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Otter likes again @Parabolic but we learn new stuff every day. Tnx fer the input.  I would have expected it given the latitude drops prevailing at or near Solar max but didn’t think about it until  I saw what I believed were cross connecting polarities. 

I would link the info for the coronal loops but I only have it in PDF format and I haven't figured out how to compress it on my phone yet. I can probably figure it out once I can get to my laptop.

Also, another neat tid bit of info that sort of relates; Active regions with very large amounts of magnetic flux are much less likely to produce a CME from a high energy flare because of 'magnetic caging'. Article here   https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aba6ef

35 minutes ago, Parabolic said:

I would link the info for the coronal loops but I only have it in PDF format and I haven't figured out how to compress it on my phone yet. I can probably figure it out once I can get to my laptop.

Also, another neat tid bit of info that sort of relates; Active regions with very large amounts of magnetic flux are much less likely to produce a CME from a high energy flare because of 'magnetic caging'. Article here   https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aba6ef

Magnetic caging makes a lot of sense to me, conceptually at least,  thanks!  Mike 

11 hours ago, Parabolic said:

Also, another neat tid bit of info that sort of relates; Active regions with very large amounts of magnetic flux are much less likely to produce a CME from a high energy flare because of 'magnetic caging'. Article here   https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aba6ef

10 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Magnetic caging makes a lot of sense to me, conceptually at least,  thanks!  Mike 

Yeah, it makes sense to me too, given how a stronger magnetic field would deflect and capture particles much more easily.

That being said, from looking at some of the references there to the papers discussing the amount of unsigned flux in individual ARs, those with a flux of ≥10^23 Mx seem to be quite rare, and all really large. There's mention of one group with an area of ~6 mh (millihemispheres, a whopping 6000 µh), which corresponds to an area of ~124 square degrees, in other words a coverage of more than an entire 10x10 degree block on the surface. Most of those estimates seem to use an average field of ~3 kG for the flux density of the strongest regions too; by my estimate even with an average field of 10 kG (which seems to be considered around the upper limit for field strength) you'd need spots of around a 3x3 degree area to get to 10^23 Mx, which is crazy to think about. They do however mention that the total unsigned flux for the region as a whole can be something like a factor of 5-6 more than that found in the spots alone though, which means that for such extreme field strengths even a sunspot area of just ~2-3 square degrees could potentially be enough.

The largest of the incoming spots seems to have an area around there, ~3 square degrees by my estimate (just the umbra, that is), but I doubt it has a field strength that extreme. With a more conservative estimate of the field strength it would probably have to be ~3-4 times as large to reach even a fifth of that 10^23 Mx flux level, but I'm not sure if that factor of 5-6 that would help it across the finish line applies to weaker regions as well.

Just estimates of course; better would be to download the HMI vector magnetogram series they're using and use those measurements, but that'd take some work. An exercise left to the reader for now, heh.

http://jsoc.stanford.edu/data/farside/Recent/Composite_Map.png

well looks not too bad...

 

Edited February 19, 20241 yr by Solar_Marcel

Another thread  also could be called returning inactive regions with respect to former 3575. I was also incorrect earlier posting a S25 estimate.  Checking archive shows it at S 35.  Its been on the board all day and nothing showing as far as limb activity yet. I haven’t looked for plage yet, but probably will see its remnants either here already or soon. Bummer! 

The graph of the actual 6 hours x-ray flux looks like the heartbeat of a flatliner on his monitor. I hope better things will come around the limb.