Saturday, January 29, 2011

Happy Birthday Son Sun observation

Invitation to 1st Birthday!
Busy day today, but nothing compared to 12 years ago...on January 29th 1999, Ian finally arrived!  I say finally as he had been trying to come for almost 6 weeks and it was all Beth could do to keep his restless little behind in the womb while she remained on bed rest at Tucson Medical Center.  It has been a fun filled 12 years and each year seems to get better and better.  We started our day today with player evaluations for little league Majors division, and Ian did great in both fielding and pitching evaluations.   While I'll help out coaching soon enough, I spent the 3 hours this morning leaning over the outfield fence, sipping my coffee and appreciating how lucky I am to have such a wonderful son.  We already have memories to last a lifetime and I am increasingly proud of the young man he is becoming. Ian woke early this morning and quickly reminded us that it is only 4 years until he receives his drivers license.  Wow...I am sure it will feel like tomorrow.




As we get ready to have the family over to celebrate, I slipped outside to make an observation of the Sun on my son's birthday.  overall, it remains fairly quiet, with a few small active regions (AR) and small prominences.  You can see below in my sketch that AR 11150 in the southeast is the largest and brightest of the regions.  It appears to have at least one small spot and contains many magnetic field lines.  AR 11151 near the west limb is fairly small and appears to be deteriorating.  In the northeast, there is an extremely bright prominence accompanied by a bright plage region that may be heralding an AR coming around the limb.  My sketch was completed at 1921 UT (12:21 MST) using my Lunt 60mm Hydrogen Alpha Solar Telescope.

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