oMg ThErE's A hUgE HoLe In ThE sUn!! ☀️

Today is the day! ☀️

Happy Valentine's Day to the one I can't take my eyes off of, even when you're being a pain in the ass. 😉💘

🚨 Preliminary GOES CCOR data is now available Will be available in 15 minute intervals while operational testing continues. ☀️ testbed.spaceweather.gov/products/ccor-…

What do you see? ☀️

Yesterday's sun! The chunky sunspots are heading around the bend and it's looking awfully quiet in the other hemisphere. Details: https://www.astrobin.com/gea408/ #sun #solar #astrophography #photography #solarsystem #sunspots #space

Fun Fact: Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), the sole provider of coronagraph imagery from L1 along the Sun-Earth line, was originally planned for a 2 year mission in Dec 1995, or 730 days. As of 23 Jan 2025, SOHO is on mission day 10,646! ☀️🛰️

Nice reminder of how the semantics of active region complexity don't always mean much of anything when it comes to possible flare activity. 3961 & 3964 have been the most complex & likely of flare activity, yet a benign area blasted a long duration M3 flare w/ a southward CME. ☀️

Any suggestions on free, easy to use video editing software/applications, both mobile device and desktop? 📽️

AR3961 (south center) currently has the best chance for activity with the highest flare probability of all regions on the disk at 45% for M flares & 10% for X flares. This will be the region to keep an eye on over the next few days as any eruption would likely have an Earth directed component. ☀️

Big, scary coronal hole with concerningly fast solar wind that could wreak havoc on Earth where? 🧐 ☀️

Clear skies today with temperatures in the 30s (℉) gave us an opportunity to record an interesting development on Earth's Sun. "Fast-growing sunspot 3964 didn't even exist yesterday," reported Spaceweather .com. "Now it is as big as two Earths and poses a threat for strong flares." #sunspots #sun

Our Sun and current #sunspot regions photographed about 30 minutes ago from my back garden 📸 Nikon Coolpix P1000 #sun #sunspots #solarphotography #photography #nikonphotography

Although AR3964 will continue to rotate into a non-favorable position in the event it ever launches a CME, this is still a region to watch as of right now. 💥 After abruptly appearing on the disk, indicating its potential for activity, it just released an M7 flare, no CME. ☀️

Let's clear up two common misconceptions when it comes to coronal holes (CH). 🧵 First, do not be fool into thinking the size has changed drastically, growing from east to central meridian (CM) and then shrinking from central meridian westward. ☀️

With new active regions appearing, we will have to keep a close eye on the eastern portion of the Sun. Flare activity is quiet, for now, but that can switch up quick. 👀☀️

2025 is the year of trolling and making fools of big news media companies that spread misinformation and clickbait about space weather. I'm 2 for 3 with effectively getting a post deleted. 👊

The fast solar wind from the western most, finger-like extension of the coronal hole is reaching Earth now and should continue to ramp up as the entirety of the coronal hole rotates westward. This could enhance geomagnetic activity over the coming days. ☀️

In case you come across a bunch of hype about a "big hole in the Sun", it's really not that serious and is a normal part of the solar cycle, as always. Wait until we get to solar minimum and coronal holes take up nearly half of the Earth-facing disk at times. ☀️ Solar Max >>> Solar Min

First it was the AGU FOMO and now the AMS FOMO. Excited to be at Space Weather Workshop in a little over two months in Boulder, Colorado! Who will I be seeing there?! ☀️

Comet G3 ATLAS looking great in the raw Blue filter LASCO C3 images! ☀️🔭

We have another super bright comet (C/2024 G3 Atlas) making an appearance in LASCO C3 imagery! ☀️☄️

As a majority of the regions on the disk continue to decline and/or rotate off with no replenishment, background x-ray flux has dipped into B level. Not completely unusual, but shows how easily activity can change no matter how good or bad things look on any given day. ☀️

SDO Outage Update 🚨 AIA imagery feeds have started to be restored. There is still no HMI imagery, but progress is being made! ☀️

Update on underperforming CME activity: The possible glancing blow CME from the 4th appears to have arrived around 04Z today. Despite providing a decent jump to wind speeds, magnetic field connection has been weak, so G1 has not been reached. 1/2 ☀️

What if I started doing regular space weather chit chat livestreams where we can talk about whatever is currently going on and/or whatever else based on questions ya'll have? 👀☀️

Space-weather sentinels, commercial lunar missions, and lots of planetary flybys are on tap this year. buff.ly/40m1ied . . #astronomy #spacemission #space #planets #stars #moon #spaceweather

New G1 Watch for the 6th following analysis of the CME associated w/ the long duration C7 flare from AR3939 on the 4th. While I personally wouldn't expect much of anything from this on its own, the environment is already disturbed, so it wouldn't take much to see G1 conditions. ☀️

Still dodging clouds to get my solar and lunar images, but this one had much better results. I really like imaging the sun when there are so many sunspots! Details: https://buff.ly/3W8hDAx #astrophotography #photography #sunspots #solarflares #space 🔭 📷 🧪

Are we gonna hit all 3 storm scales in the first 4 days of 2025? 💥 ☀️ Currently approaching radiation storm levels following some west limb eruptions.

How many X-class flares in total do you think AR3947 will pop off during its time on the Earth-facing disk? 💥☀️

Despite expecting a CME around the same time, I would argue the current enhancement in the solar wind/magnetic is due to the fast solar wind from large +CH05. Are we finally reaching the point in the solar cycle where coronal holes can be a reliable source of activity again? ☀️

As soon as I walked into work today, AR3947 popped it's third X-class flare. I see how this week is going to go...

New trouble maker has entered the chat. ☀️ Second X-class flare today from new region AR3947 in the northeast! 💥

I’m still working on finishing my Kp blanket for 2024. Should hopefully have it done within the next week or so, but I’ve been keeping record of the daily max Kp (based on SWPC’s Kp) for the entire year and here’s the final results! ☀️

Sun today 02012025 plenty of activity crossing the face, big band of active regions and associated sunspots. #sun #solar #sunhour #sunspots #astrophotography #astronomy #space

Despite the rapid uptick in activity during the last week of December, monthly averages for SSN and F10.7 remained nearly the same as November's numbers, BUT still well above the forecast! 💥 Here's to another year of solar max! ☀️

WHAT. A. DAY. 🥵

One of those days where I could really use more computer screens. 😂😮‍💨

Starting off the year with what is now (just barely) the 3rd strongest geomagnetic storm of Solar Cycle 25. With the ongoing geomagnetic storm tentatively reaching a Dst of -214nT, that bumps the April 23rd/24th 2023 storm to 4th place with a minimum Dst of -213nT. ☀️

Despite battling data dropouts with ACE & DSCOVR, it's clear that we are now in the core of the ongoing solar storm where there was been sustained -Bz for multiple hours. Although a little later than expected, it's currently looking right on par to verify the original G3 forecast. ☀️

As the solar storm continues to bombard Earth, GOES-16 (east) is observing significant compression on the magnetosphere as it comes into the daytime sector. Magnetopause is currently compressed beyond geosynchronous, meaning GOES-16 is currently outside of the magnetosphere (negative mag values). ☀️

I won’t be awake for local midnight (gotta babysit the Sun in the morning), so since it’s UTC midnight, farewell 2024! 🤍

How is it looking for aurora tonight? Not good, nonexistent. But a majority of the northern US is under clouds, so didn’t really matter anyways. 😂

Hello friend! 💥 Let the last geomagnetic storm of the year begin! ☀️

Happy New Year’s Eve! 🎉 Low-energy protons at ACE are back on the rise, helping to indicate that we hopefully have one last good solar storm on the way to end 2024 and ring in 2025! 💥☀️

It was mostly yapping and ranting, but I did my first ever Youtube live stream to talk about space weather and the incoming solar storms. There will be plenty more where this one came from, but for now, the recording can be found on my channel: www.youtube.com/live/duuOJuP... ☀️

Kinda want to do a livestream tonight to chat about space weather and the incoming solar storms 🤔☀️

Let's all take a deep breath and not hyperfixate on the different CME models to avoid taking them way too literally please. 💛☀️