Magneto's Second Run

Today, I witnessed the end of an era for the villain behind a geomagnetic attack. Formerly known as AR3664, newly designated sunspot AR3697 came around the sun with guns blazing and blasted flares as if that's a perfectly normal thing for a sunspot to do. It is nearing the southeast limb of the sun and will soon be on the other side. Will it return again? Only time will tell. Notice the long, thin filaments threading their way into space from the solar rim. You can see filaments snaking across the surface of the sun near the mega sunspot. If you look carefully, you can see the distinctive sideways number "8" characteristic of magnetic fields puncturing the surface and attracting plasma. They get wound up and then fire themselves into the solar system. On May 10 2024, two such solar payloads caught with each other, one cannibalized the other, then this mega brute force of sun guts smashed directly into the earth, pushing the Aurora Borealis ring halfway down the planet. Oregon registered K9 auror levels and the geomagnetic storm that caused it is suspected of being one of the most intense in recorded history.

Coronado PST 40mm (single-stacked)
TeleVue PowerMate 2.5x
ZWO ASI294MM Pro
ZWO AM5 mount

AstroSurface and PixInsight