Solar Active Region 4079

A massive group of sunspots, designated Active Region 4079, is visible on the surface of the Sun between late April and early May 2025. The group is so large that its size is comparable to that of the planet Jupiter, making it possible to spot it though solar eclipse glasses alone, without the use of a telescope (important: never look directly at the Sun without proper eye protections such as certified eclipse glasses or astronomical filters designed for solar observations. Not doing so can cause permanent eye damage.).

May 2nd

Active Region 4079 imaged on May 2nd 2025, first picture at 14:03 UTC and second picture at 9:47 UTC. Seeing was not great today, however the test of adapting a Fujifilm XF2.0x Teleconverter as a Barlow lens behind my Maksutov 102/1300 was quite successful in terms if image quality.

May 1st

These images were captured on May 1st 2025 using a Maksutov 102/1300 telescope and a ZWO ASI 585 MC planetary camera. The raw video captures were acquired using FireCapture, then stacked using AstroSurface and finally processed with Adobe Photoshop.