The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
A huge sunspot (AR3590) has been throwing out some rather spectacular flares. It has now rotated into view and I had to try for it, with my midrange solar filter and my normal telephoto rig.
Specific Feedback
All comments welcome.
Technical Details
In LR, Texture and Contrast to 100. Into PS to select the sky and darken noise with a Curves adj layer. Then Nik CEP Detail Extractor to bring out more of the turbulent detail on the sun’s surface. (My filter is not maximized for this but there is enough detail to be satisfying.)
Great shot, and thanks for the reference. Even I, with my very limited knowledge of sunspots and solar flares recognize this a a big one. Any effect on communications? Auroras?
When this area was just behind the limb there were predictions of very low-latitude auroras (i.e northern Canada) but I haven’t heard more. Communications – my husband has been a pretty serious ham (amateur radio operator) since he was about 10. (That would be for a long time now.) I asked him about communications since these flares started. The answer was first about huge things, like the electromagnetic pulse that would result from a nuclear explosion (visualize: in orbit) and wipe out virtually all communications including GPS. That morphed into how nobody (including the military) can do celestial navigation from airplanes these days. (He can, and has, across the Pacific, a couple of times.) But then he got to my question and the discussion shrank down to ham radio frequencies. (I suspect there was something in between that got glossed over.) He speaks frequencies and I think in wavelengths, and this was just after dinner and a bit too much wine, so I got a bit confused, but the gist of it was ten meters (which seems to be a range that encompasses much of the ham radio frequencies) is really good during solar max, when there are a lot of sunspots stirring up the ionosphere. Everything is variable but it seems there are possibilities to communicate over unusual distances when the ionosphere is energized. Something about the way radio waves reflect.
I wandered off and I think he’s still talking – I’d be happy to give you his cell#.
Diane, quite an amazing look at this ongoing event. Your outline of concerns on possible and actual various communications interruptions is scary to say the lest.
I recall back, many years ago now, my crew was installing very large EPABX (Electronic Private Branch Exchange) telephone systems at two major university’s in So Cal during some solar flare events. Both university administrators were sharing their concerns of our systems being immune to the somewhat act of God events. I reassured them that our systems were the best money could buy and very much bulletproof, but if Mother Nature wanted to knock our telephone systems off the air we had no control over that power…
Also, your comment mentions GPS too. As I just spent 3 rainy days manually transferring all my GPS Waypoints from my 30 year old Garmin 10? to a Garmin 22x I began to look for my old Army Corps of Engineers compass I’ve had for at least 65+ years now…
Thank you for sharing the imaging and also your outline including your husbands passion for Ham Radio usage. I had a good friend who was a Ham Operator for years. One of his consistent ham radio communications was with B. H. “Tex” Burdick who’s family from El Paseo installed most of the farm & ranch water pump windmills throughout the southwest & Mexico. Blades In The Sky
It hasn’t thrown out another big flare since rotating into view, but stand by…
Yeah, I’ll bet hardly anybody knows how to use a compass these days, either. (Our magnetic variation here is 13 degrees.) But GPS is so awesome these days. I’m fighting the urge to get a drone and got the iPhone app that shows if I’m in any kind of restricted airspace. I clicked the location icon and the strangest geometric shape filled the screen. I thought I had done something wrong until I zoomed out and saw a satellite picture of the roof of our house.
But with all our technological advantages, I wonder if we (in the whole) are getting way too stupid. A friend who is a retired IT person recently wondered if they have gravity on other planets!!! Yikes! I tried to explain that gravity is a fundamental property of matter, but I neglected to explain what matter is. (I decided not to even mention the electromagnetic force, much less the strong and weak nuclear forces.)
The roof event is too funny…
I’m a novice with a compass. M brother Tom, who ventures out on my photo outings with me, is very skilled at knowing the compass usage in and outs with location variation issues and triangulating a spot and such. I’m too aged to find an exact location without GPS these days. He carries his compass into the outback as I get him to give me exact horizon angle / degree spot(s) where the sunrise is. Not only for my shadow cast but photographing towards the sun too. I get the degree readouts from the TPE program before our outings…
