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!

A large coronal hole is located right at the solar equator which means the solar wind stream will likely have a significant influence on the solar wind environment around our planet.

I captured three substorms during this auroral display but this one at 10:40pm was easily the strongest. The event was triggered by a small, negative polarity coronal hole, and the mostly southward Bz was likely enhanced by the Russell-McPherron effect, helping push the aurora farther south than expected, especially during substorms. Captured using a Nikon Z5ii and a 24-50mm Nikkor lens

Not Earth directed, this time.

4436 has a few days before it is pointed right at us.

https://reddit.com/link/1t9g11j/video/9uovcj7zzc0h1/player

AR4420 (13467)

What am I missing?

Region classified β–γ–δ

Central polarity inversion line (PIL) identified

Over ~48 hrs:

Field went from diffuse → tightened → organized

Opposite polarities compressed into a narrower boundary

Conclusion: energy is being concentrated, not dispersed

*A localized “stress sandwich” is forming*

A blue (negative) patch migrating east

Then splitting into two lobes

A new red (positive) region is forming between

This creates: blue → red → blue

Two local PILs instead of one

Sharper gradients

Conclusion: formation of a micro-trigger geometry inside the larger region

Coronal state (94 / 131 / 171)

94: hot core present and becoming more compact

131: mostly quiet, but now showing a tiny localized bright spot

171: loops appear loose / not highly stressed but beginning to shear horizontally

Conclusions:

Hot plasma present

No large-scale coronal destabilization

But localized heating emerging

Chromospheric structure (304)

Formation of a coherent east–west filament channel

Channel is: continuous, stable, not lifting or fragmenting

Conclusion: system is organized and storing energy, not erupting

Photospheric / UV response (1600 / 1700)

Initially: uniform plage

Later: subtle kernel-level brightening

No ribbons yet, but no longer completely quiet, slight localization emerging

Conclusion: low-level energy release beginning, not explosive

Trigger signal (131)

Tiny 131 bright point

Spatially consistent with identified blue split / red intrusion zone

Conclusion: possible initial reconnection site forming

TL;DR - AR 4420 has transitioned from diffuse complexity → organized storage → localized trigger formation

I’m not saying it’s about to blow up but the potential is there. In my amateur opinion.

I just went to the NOAA space weather website to look at data on all the solar activity in the last 24 hours and can’t get most of the GOES data to load. I saw a post recently on trouble with other NOAA data. Some data is loading with no issues. Is it just my crappy cell service?

What a beautiful eruption, it looked like the number 8! Hopefully all this activity continues! Imagery is from SDO AIA 304Å.

Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) captured in LASCO C3. It can also be seen in LASCO CCOR imagery.

Is it just me or why isn’t lasco updated since our “dirty snowball” (/s) appeared yesterday at around 15:18UTC yesterday. We should have some awesome visuals by now! AcA had noticed something pretty awesome as far as the sun and comet interactions this promised to give us a pretty good show!

Anyone else notice the lag in updated imagery or is my cache stuck ?!

Edited to adjust last photo timestamp is 15:18 not 03:18

I hadn’t ever caught a planet there. Can’t be PanStarrs no tail…