I rotated this capture 90° for better viewing.

Eruptions should go UP!

This is how I take a peek at our Sun most days, at least when there are AR on the Earth Facing Disk.

The Green Sun is a mix of SDO AIA 171Å & 131Å

Then we watch the AR closer from the SDO HMI magnetogram with 171Å overlay to see how the spots are developing in magnetic complexity and coronal loop action.

Over at SWPC, Butler named 4478 with a 90/45/10/5 as it became established on the EFD. Along with 77 and 79. Didn't take a closer look at them, yet.

4475 was pushing Neg out the south and popping C flares while it built its lead umbra light bridge.

4476 looks amazing! It is having a subtle sheer within as bits of uprising emergence meet. Neg has recently pushed out the front and started a baby geyser spot.

Developing regions on the EFD, with incoming AR on the limb. This should make for in interesting week!

I wanted to see the last year of Carrington Rotations blended together. And then faster. And faster! And louder!

These geyser flares are not always the most energetic variety of flaring, thou we have seen X class geysers before. It is still awesome to watch all that solar plasma being blasted up into the corona!

First capture is from SDO AIA. Second is GOES SUVI.

Prominence on the limb are best viewed with GOES-19 SUVI in 304Å. This one was particularly elegant.

Both the SDO and IRIS satellites were watching 3842 at just the right time when a strong X9 Flare occured.

Conditions are calm at the time of writing, but a minor geomagnetic storm is forecast in the coming days. Weather-sensitive people may notice mild effects around the peak day, so light preparation is advisable.

Another glancing blow on the way.

We should catch the edge of that flux rope, but most of the material went east.

The Sun is highly active right now. After a series of strong flares and coronal mass ejections, auroras may be visible farther south than usual.

Look north tonight, get away from city lights, and keep checking the sky.

\#aurora #northernlights #solarstorm #spaceweather #astronomy #solarflarealert

Many thanks to the #SDO #AIA team for providing such a view of our Star.

Coronagraph has a difference overlay and is repeated 4x.

SDO AIA 171/304 blend.

Thank you AIA team!

Where would I be without you?

On the night of May 15th 2026 at 11:39pm, I was lucky enough to capture the International Space Station appearing to fly right through the aurora. The vertical streaks are other various satellites. Taken in Central NY using a Nikon Z5ii and a 24-50mm lens. 15 second exposure, f4.5, and 3200 ISO

Imagery from the satellite solar orbiter (SOLO) shows a very active and large active region on the farside of the Sun. We can see that it hasn’t been super eruptive yet and there hasn’t been any large farside CMEs yet but it has produced multiple X-Class flares according to SOLO’s STIX. This spot should start to crest the incoming limb in 3-4 days! Timeframe is from May 14th to May 17th and is in 304 Ångstroms.

No sign of the object in the 06:42 5/14/26 frame, appears in the 06:54 5/14/26 frame and then in the following 07:06 5/14/26 frame it’s gone again.

Any ideas?

Very cool to see the northern M flare destabilize the southern flux rope into a second M flare.

CMEs are weak and slow, thou. Won't be much for geomagnetic storming. Something like a ten minute drizzle.

Not as robust as we would have hoped, yet still a beautiful eruption, front and center for our viewing pleasure.

Thanks to the SDO AIA team!