The Sun has these incredibly active sunspot groups on its surface numbered AR2866 & AR2868 with another sunspot developing not far away numbered AR2869.
The two smaller sunspots nearing the western limb are AR2863 & AR2865.
 
I’m at my Stardust Observatory this weekend and just had to take some images of these wonderful active regions on the solar surface  :-)

My image was taken with a Canon 70D camera & Canon 100-400mm lens with 2x teleconverter = 1280mm focal length with solar filter attached…. The exposure was 1/500th second and ISO100, 20 images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PSCS4.

Movie taken with my Canon 70D and Canon 100-400mm lens plus 2x teleconverter = Focal length 1280mm

I was out at my Stardust Observatory and even though it was a lovely clear sky all around me, when I went to take a photo of the setting Sun, there was this huge smoky band on the western horizon from a large bushfire. Within minutes the Sun was setting into the thick fiery atmosphere and being pulled into an egg shape!
 
I had to quickly take the solar filter off the lens to capture the Sun as it was disappearing into the thick smog; it went this amazing bright pink colour before it completely disappeared…it was very exciting. You can also just make out those two large sunspot groups AR2866 & AR2868 on the surface.

My images were taken on my last new moon weekend, with a Canon 70D camera & Canon 100-400mm lens with 2x teleconverter = 1280mm focal length with solar filter taken off the lens, the thick smoke acted as filter.
(This is the real hot pink colour of the Sun with no processing)

Wow…just like that, there’s a sprinkling of active sunspots on the Sun today!

The Sun looked very spotty with many active sunspots across its surface and some small prominences around the limb, The Active Regions are 2863, 2864, 2866 and 2868. The Sun is really starting to get quite active now with sunspots sprouting up nearly every day now.
 
The white light image was taken with a Canon 70D camera & Canon 100-400mm lens with 2x teleconverter = 1280mm focal length with solar filter attached…. The exposure was 1/500th second and ISO200, 20 images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PSCS4.
 
The H Alpha Image was taken with a Lunt 60mm H-alpha telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 3x Barlow lens. Two sets of images were taken, one for the disc and another for the faint prominences and combined in PS.
​

Sunspot Group AR2860
It’s lovely to see another large sunspot group on the Sun and its very active; there are a lot of little areas of sunspots that are spread out across the solar disc for quite some distance.
 
Because of the cloudy weather, I was only able to take some quick photos with my camera and lens on a tripod; I waited until there was a gap in the clouds then fired away as quick as I could to capture these images.
 
I’ve also included below a short movie of the clouds passing quickly across the face of the Sun, that looks quite awesome :-)
 
The images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Canon 100-400mm lens @400mm plus a 2x tele converter making a focal length of 1280mm.  A glass solar fitter was fitted to the lens.
 
Twenty images were captures with an exposure time of 1/500th second and ISO200, then stacked in RegiStak6, processed in PS CS4.
 
DANGER…PLEASE NOTE: Never look directly at the Sun without a proper solar filter attached to your camera lens or telescope. (See my attach image)

I was able to take some more images of this wonderful huge Sunspot late yesterday afternoon and this time I used my little planetary ZWO camera, which showed so much more detail around the active area than the DSLR images that I took on the 26th November 2020.
 
We are having a heat wave here at the moment so it’s very very hot outside taking pictures of the Sun…but it’s worth it :-)
 
Images were taken on the 28th November, with a 127mm refractor telescope fitted with a glass solar filter and using a ZWO 120 MC-S camera. The camera was at prime focus for the first image, and then I attached a 3x Barlow lens for the higher magnification images. AVI movie files were captured with 2500 frames and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

~ Sunspots AR2786, AR2785 & AR2783 ~
On the 26th November 2020 
​
​It’s very exciting to see the Sun becoming so active again and this new active region AR2786 is really putting on a spectacular display, smaller sunspots are now developing close by and it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens in the couple of days :-)
 
Images were taken on the 26th November 2020 with a 127mm refractor telescope fitted with glass solar filters for safe viewing and imaging of the Sun (Please see my setup image attached) using a Canon 700D camera.
 
The full disc image was taken at prime focus with ISO200 & 1/640th second exposures. The close up image had a 2x Barlow lens attached, exposures were 1/60th second and ISO 400, twenty images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

(Please be careful looking at the Sun)

This is the first chance I’ve had to image this huge sunspot AR2781 because of cloud cover and its now facing toward the Earth on the solar surface.
 
This is the biggest sunspot of the new Solar Cycle 25 and it looks like the Sun is now awakening from its slumber!
 
There have been some really stunning images posted on Spaceweagther.com one in particular is from Alan Friedman, which featured on the front page at:
https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=09&month=11&year=2020
 
The image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens with a 2x converter making a focal length of 1280mm, which was mounted on a non-tracking camera tripod. 15 images were stacked in RegiStax 6 and processed in PS CS4, the e27812727xposure time was 1000th second and ISO320.

The sunspot is now looking very small in the 127mm refractor telescope as it rotates towards the western limb of the Sun on the 11th June 2020. During this afternoon observing session I was racing against time as cloud was coming all across the western sky.
 
After taking some images with the refractor I quickly removed it off the Pro HEQ5 mount and replaced it with the Lunt 60mm solar telescope to try and capture some images in Ha. (I always use this tracking mount when using both these telescopes)
 
It was really lucky to get a break in the cloud to capture just two AVI movie movies of the area with the Ha telescope before the whole sky clouded over and that was that…no more observing!
 
The white light image was taken with a 127mm refractor telescope that was fitted with a glass solar filter and using a Canon 700D camera.

​Just one image was captured with an exposure time of 1/320h second and ISO400.  The Ha image was taken with the Lunt solar telescope and a ZWO ASI120MC-S camera attached capturing an AVI movie file and stacking in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

It was quite late in the afternoon by the time I could finally take an image of this new sunspot on the surface of the Sun. I was having a lot of trouble trying to get some close detail on the sunspot and really could not understand why?
 
After packing up, I looked up towards Mt Tamborine and saw the reason why, a huge forest burn off was taking place and a large plume of smoke was spreading across the western sky. Because of where my telescope was setup between the two houses I was unable to see this smoke, Oh well, at least I was lucky enough to got some images of the sunspot even though they were a bit smoke affected :-)
 
My images were taken on the 5th June 2020, with a 10inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope that was fitted with a glass solar filter and using a ZWO ASI120MC-S camera with a focal reducer attached. The full disc image was taken with a Canon 700D camera, exposure time was 1/500th second and ISO200, 12 images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4. The sunspot looked quite small on the full disc of the Sun.

This new sunspot is from the next Solar Cycle 25, please read more about this from
​Dr Tony Phillips who pens the excellent website Spaceweather.com
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/12/25/reversed-polarity-sunspots-appear-on-the-sun/
 
Another site to keep a daily eye on the Sun is NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) at: https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov

~ Our Sun on 20_02_2020 ~
 
I just had to take a photo of our Sun today for this special numerical date of the 20th of February 2020, because it’s such an awesome date to remember the year when solar minimum occurred…. and Yes, the Sun’s still ever so quite and spotless today :-)
 
Image taken with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm Tamron lens with a 2x converter (focal length 1280mm) with a glass solar filter attached to the lens for safe solar imaging. The exposure time was 1/400th second and ISO 320, 10 images stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

To read more about our quite Sun and solar minimum please go to this excellent article written by Dr Tony Phillips from Spaceweather.com
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/12/17/sunspots-set-a-space-age-record/
 
If your are interested in keeping an eye on what the Suns doing daily, then please go to NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory website at:
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Goddard Space Flight Centre has just released two YouTube videos to celebrate
​SDO’s 10th Anniversary of watching the Sun.
Please see below the short video...'SDO Celebrates a Decade of Watching Sun'

Below is the longer and informative video called
‘Highlights From SDO’s 10 years of Solar Observation’
 
In February 2020, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory — SDO — is celebrating its 10th year in space. Over the past decade the spacecraft has kept a constant eye on the Sun, studying how the Sun creates solar activity and drives space weather — the dynamic conditions in space that impact the entire solar system, including Earth.
 
Since its launch on Feb. 11, 2010, SDO has collected millions of scientific images of our nearest star, giving scientists new insights into its workings. SDO’s measurements of the Sun — from the interior to the atmosphere, magnetic field, and energy output — have greatly contributed to our understanding of our closest star. SDO’s images have also become iconic — if you’ve ever seen a close-up of activity on the Sun, it was likely from an SDO image.