Category: - My Stardust Observatory

Active sunspots AR 4479 & 4478 nearing western limb of Sun 3rd July 2026

7/3/2026

Both of these two sunspots are extremely large and active and are producing solar flares; streams of plasma are arriving at the Earth from the eruption on the 1st July. Check in with Spaceweather.com to see all the images from the event at:

https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=03&month=07&year=2026

Images taken with Seestar S50 telescope with attached solar filter, RAW movie file captured and stacked within the unit and processed in PS.

Solar Dynamics Observatory
(SDO) website at:
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov

~ Huge active sunspot AR 4478 now facing planet Earth on 1st July 2026 ~

7/1/2026

This is a really huge sunspot on the surface of the Sun and is harbouring energy for and X-class solar flare, the other large sunspot AR 4479 erupted yesterday and produced an X1.1-class solar flare as recorded on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) website at:
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov

Spaceweather.com has all the update on this exciting solar flare at:
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=01&month=07&year=2026

The SDO recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash as seen below:

https://spaceweather.com/images2026/30jun26/x1flare.gif

My image taken with the Seestar S50 telescope with the attached solar filter, RAW movie file captured and stacked within the unit and processed in PS.

~ Solar surface with large sunspots AR 4455 & AR 4458 on 6th June 2026 ~

6/6/2026

There are quite a lot of small sunspot groups on the surface of the Sun today and most of them are following a path across the northern hemisphere with larger active sunspots AR 4455 & AR 4448 rotating toward the western limb.

Image taken with a Seestar S50 telescope with its attached solar filter and processed in PS.

~ The solar surface with scattering of sunspots on 30th May 2026 ~

5/30/2026

~ The solar surface with scattering of sunspots ~

It’s our first clear sunny day in weeks and it was a delight to see some larger sunspots on the surface of the Sun.

My image was taken with a Seestar S50 telescope with its attached solar filter capturing a raw movie file and stacking within the unit.

I’ve also found an easier way to find the Sun when the Seestar has trouble locating it, by manually slewing there and using a sun finder called Sol Searcher by Tele Vue :-D

~ Spotless surface on the Sun today on 25th February 2026 ~

2/25/2026

~ Spotless Sun ~

Yay! Finally after a couple of days of cloudy weather the clouds parted late this afternoon and I could capture a picture of our spotless Sun.

Its been four years now since we’ve seen a smooth unblemished surface on the face of the Sun, but I’m sure it’s not going to last for very long as this active cycle has not finished yet by a long shot!

Image taken with a SeestarS50 telescope with the attached solar filter and processed in PS.

Spaceweather.com at:
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=24&month=02&year=2026

CREDIT: Spaceweather.com

THE SUN IS FLATLINING: With no sunspots actively flaring, the sun's X-ray output has flatlined. The quiet is likely to continue for at least another 24 hours. NOAA forecasters say there is no more than a 1% chance of M- or X-class solar flares on Feb. 24th. Aurora alerts: SMS Tex t
WHERE HAVE ALL THE SUNSPOTS GONE? Click on this image and take a careful look around the solar disk. Can you find any sunspots? We can't either

This week has brought the first "spotless days" since 2022. So far, Feb. 22nd and Feb. 23rd have had completely blank suns. There have been no sunspots on the solar disk, breaking an uninterrupted 4 years of non-stop sunspot activity.
What does this mean? It's an early warning of Solar Minimum, the low point of the 11-year solar cycle. During years around Solar Minimum, whole months can go by without a single sunspot, racking up dozens of spotless days in a row. Between 2018 and 2020 (the last Solar Minimum) there were more than 700 spotless days in total. You can find the daily counts right here on Spaceweather.com.

Solar Cycle 25 still has years of life left in it. However, these spotless days tell us that the current cycle is waning. Sunspots will be back--probably tomorrow--but today is a preview of things to come.

https://www.spaceweather.com

~ A beautiful solar halo around the Sun on 9th February 2026 ~

2/9/2026

The clouds are back again, but I didn’t mind at all this time because when I looked up high in the sky there in all its glory was a beautiful solar halo around the Sun.

My image was taken with a Canon G7x Mark11 camera on manual focus…. keep looking up you never know what you’ll see ;-)

Large active Sunspot AR 4366 on surface of Sun 5th February 2026

2/5/2026

~ Sunspot AR 4366 ~

This is the first day in weeks that we’ve had a clear day, so I was very excited to get the telescope out and view this very large complex sunspot group AR 4366 on the surface of the Sun.

My images were taken with a Seestar S50 telescope with the attached solar filter then processed in PS.

~ The Sun ‘New Years Day’ with sunspot AR 4325 on 1st January 2026 ~

1/1/2026

~ Happy New Year to Everyone ~

Here’s hoping we have lots of surprises in the skies for 2026 :-)

Light rain started to fall about 9pm last night for New Years Eve which dampened a few of the firework celebrations here on the Gold Coast, but I’m sure everyone still had a great time!

I was determined to capture a picture of the Sun today for the first day of the New Year even though there was quite a lot of cloud about; I did it, so here is the Happy New Year Sun for 2026!

Because I post a lot of my images on Spaceweather.com this is the greeting that went with my post today on there website for everyone, if you are interested is what the Sun is currently up to and seeing some amazing solar and night sky images this is the place to go daily at: https://spaceweather.com/

Happy New Year to Dr Tony Phillips and all contributors of Spaceweather.com from all over the world, I hope everybody has a wonderful year in 2026 :-)

My images were taken with a Seestar S50 telescope with an attached solar filter; the sky was not very good because of clouds, twenty images were captured then stacked in Registax6 and processed in PS.

Sunspots AR4294 & AR4296 on western limb of Sun 9th December 2025

12/9/2025

I’ve managed to follow the progression of these huge sunspot groups AR 4294 & AR 4296 for 7 days as they have rotated from the east to west on the surface of the Sun.

It was expected that at some time that either one of these sunspots would have released there pent up energy in the form of a solar flare or a CME, but that did not happen!

The eastern side of the Sun is looking very quite at the moment and I’ll now have a bit of a break from taking some solar images for a few days.

My images were taken with the Seestar S50mm smart telescope using the attached solar filter. Twenty images were captured, then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

~ Huge sunspots AR 4294 to AR 4296 on Sun 7th December 2025 ~

12/7/2025

For days now we have all been waiting for one of these huge sunspots to erupt when all of a sudden the smaller one AR 4299 decided to explode producing a M8 class solar flare; the Sun can do unexpected things sometimes and can be tricky :-)

This directed solar flare (CME) is Earth directed and should produce some beautiful auroras in the next couple of days up in the Northern Hemisphere.

You can keep an eye out on Spaceweather.com for more information and I’m sure there will be some beautiful images posted by contributors to the website at:
https://spaceweather.com/

You can also check for space weather conditions at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Centre at: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/