East limb of the sun in white light on April 26
A new active region AR 10953 rotated into our view on the east limb of the sun yesterday. It has been about a month since there has been any solar activity of significance.

White light image acquired with Celestron Nexstar11 telescope, F6.3 focal reducer, and Canon Xti camera (ASA 400, 1/3200 sec exposure). Images were cropped and then stacked and aligned with Registax4.
Mostly clear, high thin clouds, transparency good, turbulence 6/10, no wind, temperature 67°F.
April 27th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
With almost 2 months of no spots,it almost seems strange to see such a huge spot!
April 27th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
I guess we’ll have to get used to not seeing many spots. According to NOAA release (see http://spaceweather.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/index.html) the minimum for the current solar cycle is a year away yet, Mar 2008. We’ll have more time to save up our nickels and quarters for bigger h-alpha filters.
April 28th, 2007 at 5:57 am
Great image! I found your website through Andrew’s site. Didn’t get to view the spot because of clouds.
April 29th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Great picture hope to track this sunspot through the following week weather depending that is.
Mark