A Year of Sunspots
November 10, 2022
Photographer: Soumyadeep Mukherjee
Summary Author: Soumyadeep Mukherjee
I imaged the Sun for 365 days between December 25, 2020, and December 31, 2021, missing just six days during this period. The project started with the aim of recording the journey of a single sunspot across the solar disk, but I managed to continue imaging for an entire year. From my home in Kolkata, India, I blended the images to create a single shot, which records the rise of Solar Cycle 25. A total of 127 active regions appeared on the Earth-facing solar disk (AR 12794–AR 12921) during this phase – the image above shows all of them.
Two bands of sunspots can be identified moving across the solar disk, around 15–35 degrees north and south of the equator. Note that they gradually start drifting towards the solar equator – a phenomenon known as Spörer’s Law.
Photo details: Nikon D5600 camera; Sigma 150–600c lens; Thousand Oaks Filter (White-Light); f/6.3; ISO 100; 365 individual exposures (1/80-second to 1/500-second), 600mm; Post-processing using PIPP and Photoshop.
Kolkata, India Coordinates: 22.5726, 88.3639
Related Links:
Sunspot Sequence AR2781 in 8-Days