Sorry, this may be a duplicate...I wasn't sure if it went out. dlb Hi Y'all, I just had a peek at the sun this morning and can confirm that the 9973 complex is visible to the FILTERED naked eye. With 16x it's a fairly nice grouping of 9-10 sunspots near the Southeastern limb. It's not exactly easy right now but should become more so as the group rotates into view over the next few days. I have to admit I'm pretty lazy when it comes to solar observing...I won't even set up my rig unless I can see a sunspot grouping with just a filter. Take a look! Dave Bennett <File attached: iPhotoiPhoto-mailtmp-0.jpg> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patrick wrote:
Possible Naked Eye Sunspot Complex
A large and potentially active sunspot complex rotated into view around the south-eastern limb of the Sun on 27 May. This sunspot complex, identified as active sunspot Region 9973, currently measures 960 millionths of the solar hemisphere. This is large enough to completely map a little more than five and half times the entire surface area of the Earth into the sunspot complex. It may be large enough to spot with the protected naked eye (never look at the sun directly without protection - doing so could permanently damage your eyes!).
