I hope our electrical grids are prepared, as there is a risk of overloading from an event like this.
-The Sun Wednesday afternoon, from Regina. Canon S5IS on tripod with welding filter held in place to sufficiently darken the Sun for the camera’s sensor. 48X digital magnification.
This ongoing radiation storm ranks S2 on NOAA storm scales. It is rich in “hard” protons with more than 100 MeV of energy, which accounts for the snowiness of the SOHO coronagraph images. According to NOAA, “passengers and crew in high-flying aircraft at high latitudes may be exposed to elevated radiation risk” during such a storm.
The source of all this activity is AR1944, one of the biggest sunspots of the past decade. The sprawling active region is more than 200,000 km wide and contains dozens of dark cores. Its primary core, all by itself, is large enough to swallow Earth three times over.
Watch for aurora over the next few nights, they could be the best ever seen.
Added:
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 