“I once took a pair of binoculars and stared at the sun for over an hour”

This past weekend at WDBJ7’s annual Weatherfest celebration the Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society had a solar telescope set up for some observations of the Sun. Now, I observed the Sun when Venus performed it’s little transit a couple months ago, but I have never been able to view the Sun through a telescope until now!

Peeking into the lens revealed the massive shape of the Sun with two little dark sun spots and to my great surprise a massive solar flare coming off of it’s south western portion.

This was a great treat, and something that I had hoped to see for quite some time!

Here is a size comparison of the Earth with the type of solar flare viewed this past Saturday.