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April 2026 - Solar Observations

Details: Published: 14 May 2026

A slight change in style here. Rather than selecting individual days, here is a month on a page.

Not all days were imaged although I did get far more more daily White Light Sunspot Counts completed than expected. Mainly down to the rather pleasant and dry month that we experienced here in the UK.

The page is arranged with WL (White Light) images on the left and Ha (Hydrogen Alpha) images on the right, starting on April 6th. White light images look at the surface of the Sun (photosphere) where Sunspots are more clearly visible. Hydrogen Alpha looks at the 'atmosphere' (chromosphere) of the sun where filaments and prominences are visible. There is a huge contrast range between the prominences (plasma streams visible on the periphery of the sun) and filaments (dark bands across the surface of the sun that are actually prominences viewed from the top). In this series of images, I have not attempted to capture the prominences. In all cases, North is up and West is right, the sun rotates from East to West so features on the sun will appear to traverse from left to right and from top to bottom because the suns rotational axis is inclined to the West.

Equipment used:

For WL images, I use my 80mm F7 refractor with a ZWO ASI178MM mono camera with a Dark Blue (G Band) narrow band filter which enhances contrast and allows the granulation cell detail on the surface to be seen. Granulations are convection cells, small bubbles rising and falling constantly to the surface of the photosphere. For the Ha images, I use a borrowed Lunt ST60 Ha Telescope, with the same camera but no filter. The false colour is added during post processing.

We are almost 2 years past Solar maximum, but there is still a lot of activity happening on the surface.

Commentary follows each image pair:

20260406

The large group to the right of the image is actually two Active Regions (AR)14408 to the top and 14409 lower. Sunspots are formed due to local magnetic disturbances and this can cause significant turbulation in the chromosphere.

This is a high res image of the plasma visible in Ha and it can be seen to be distorted due to the magnetic fields surrounding this pair of ARs.

20260407

Contrast the same area a day later. The changes in the plasma and the sizes of the spots between the two ARs is quite noticeable. Some prominence activity on the limb is visible in this image.

20260416

Nine days later and it's all change. A new medium sized AR, (or Group), AR14419 is in the North East and there is a compact group with medium sized spots heading towards the western limb. The dark ribbon from the Eastern limb is a large filament, basically a loop of plasma that has risen from the surface and resettled several tens of thousands of km further around the surface.

The magnetic field of AR14419 is quite noticeable. The bright area is a solar flare in progress.

There are 4 consecutive days of images, an opportunity to watch the apparent movement and development of the sunspots.

20260420

AR14419 has now moved westward. It's shape has not changed significantly but it has grown. There is a filament below this group, not present on the 20th but appears on the 21st and develops over the following 2 days. The other filaments in this AR can also be clearly seen and tracked over the 4 day window.

A slight change in colour to enhance the features. The spot is flaring in this image, not a huge flare event, probably a C class event.

20260421

The individual spots within AR14419 have merged together. A new group (AR14422 - circled) has formed overnight. Note that is is barely visible in the WL image but clearly obvious in Ha due to the distortions in the magnetic field.

In the WL image, two new groups AR14420 (upper) and AR14421 (lower on the limb) have appeared in the North East quadrant. In this image, AR14421 is a McIntosh Hsx class single spot, normally the last remaining spot of what was a larger group. However, the white areas to the East show the extent of the Active Region. These are not easily visibly without the narrowband filter that I am using.

20260422

AR14419 continued to shrink while AR14420 and AR14421 has developed quite nicely.

A second spot has appeared to the East of AR14422, it's classification is now Eao which specifies the spacing (E = 10-15 degrees) of the group (E-W), the size and shape of the largest spot and how complex (in this case open), the group is. A full explanation of the McIntosh classification system is available in the downloads section of this website.

20260423

Due to a user incompetence problem, both these images are very noisy (grainy). I have sworn profusely, but could not recover the original data.

The large spot in AR14419 has condensed to a symmetrical shape, a sign that the spot has matured and will now start to shrink and eventually simply disappear. The second spot in AR14421 has disappeared. AR14420 has grown and is now McIntosh F class, more than 15 degrees long. AR14422 has started to fade.

20260425

Two days later and it is all change again. AR14420 is enormous in length, quite complex.

Three new groups have appeared, a three spot group (AR14422), above AR14421 which has started to show some activity, its main spot appears to be splitting. AR 14424 is to the North, in a line behind AR14420 and on the Eastern limb another complex group AR14425 has appeared. There is a single spot unnamed group appeared to the West just above the equator.

This image is quite informative. The leading spot is the spot to the right, normally, the largest spot leads the group. Light bridges are visible across the dark umbra on the large spot. When counting spots, only count the dark areas (Umbra), not the lighter surrounding areas (Penumbra). Some small pores are also visible just to the left of the leading spot. A mid grey tone. The granulation is also clearly visible. This is constantly moving. A higher resolution telescope (about twice the capture area) would show far more detail if the atmosphere remains stable for long enough.

20260427

Finally for this month, a final observation before the long spell of decent weather broke.

AR14420, the leading spot has grown slightly, the leading spot has split. The magnetic flux lines are still quite twisted but to my eyes are not especially knotted.

Muon Daily Count and Trend Line

Details: Published: 23 February 2026

At the time of writing (20260223), I have been collecting Muon Count data for almost 3 years. My Cosmic Watch Muon detector is now officially a toddler!

The daily count is impacted by the solar wind, quite simply an increase in solar wind will cause a decrease in the daily count as the Cosmic particles are swept away. As we are now 16 months past Solar maximum, I decided to have a look and see whether this effect can be observed.

The following shows the daily count (in green) with a second order polynomial trend line in red.

The graph shows the trend line decreasing as solar maximum approaches (September 2024) should update daily and now increasing as we head towards Solar Minimum in 2029/2030.

However, there is a bit of a fudge. From approximately day number 700 to day number 850, the graph looks a little flat. I hold my hands up here. I disturbed my instrument to see if there would be an increase in Muon activity from the Sun. There wasn't, but there was a reduction in Muon count of about 12000 Muons per day. Quite significant. This area of the graph has been normalised to avoid a big step which would have distorted the trend line. Lesson learned, don't mess around with an experiment in progress!

On a shorter timescale, the Muon Counters saw a noticeable decrease in the muon count (3hour sample window) following the CME impact on 20260119. The reduction in count started the following day from the CME impact, clearly the increase in solar wind lagged the CME by a few hours.

2026-01-19 - Aurora

Details: Published: 22 January 2026

A CME impact at about 19:30 triggered an aurora which (for those with clear skies) was visibly across most of the UK and Northern Europe. Sunspot 4341 erupted on 20250118 at 18:09 UTC), releasing an X1.9-class solar flare.

I missed the peak (not paying attention to social media) but my NW facing meteor camera did capture a wide angle view from 22:00 to 23:00. The move is in mono (sadly), but the brightness of the aurora was outstanding, visible at times through cloud. This is a high speed time lapse movie.

My UKRAA magnetometer also detected its arrival, the storm and the tail off back to some sort of normality.

AT the outset of a storm I can often detect (as in this case) a pre-impact usually about 90 minutes before the main impact. this is visible in the dip in Bx and By lines at about 17:35UT. It appears to me that the main impact affecting this part of the Northern Hemisphere was at 19:15, a little earlier than the official NOAA impact time. An 'off the scale in both directions' disturbance is a serious storm and I understand that the storm was classified as G4 (Severe), one down from a maximum G5 (Extreme) storm.

Bx is the E-W deflection of the Earths magnetic field, By is the N-S deflection.

The storm abated slightly on the 20th but was still classified as G3.

At 19:00 on the 21st January, the storm appears to be over.

Finally, my muon detector captured the increase in Solar Wind associated with the CME (which caused a decrease in the muon count), delayed by about 24 hours as the Solar Wind travels far more slowly than the CME. The graph below shows the muon count from midnight 20250119 to 20250122 with a 4 hour sample window. The dip is very noticeable.

Looking forward to the next one..

Meteor Camera Highlights

Details: Published: 21 January 2026

This page lists some of the highlights, significant detections made by my Global Meteor Network Cameras. All in reverse chronological order.

Quadrantids Meteor Shower - 2026-01-03

Following on from the Geminids, I had another treat at the peak of the Quadrantids Meteor Shower. It was certainly not as impressive as the Geminids but not bad for a nights work while I was asleep. Incidentally, the Quadrantids refer to a constellation (Quadrans Muralis) that was demoted by the International Astronomical Union when it devised its official list of constellations at its inaugural meeting in 1922. The shower radiant is now in the constellation of Bootes.

UK00DA (SW Facing Camera)