iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Vincent Ledvina @vincentledvina.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Here is what the Sun has been up to over the last seven days, as seen through its coronal holes, its sunspots, and Earth's geomagnetic activity:

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The paper describing the new solar wind modelling framework, SURF (which includes HUXt) is published. The code is up on github and will be installable from conda and pypi in a week or so. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

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Christian Möstl @chrisoutofspace.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Amazing new reconstruction of sunspot number for the last ~1000 years by Saha et al. 2026: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Sunspot number since the year 971, showing several long minima and the recent, more regular solar cycles

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Guillaume Bertrand @guillaumebertrand.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Pushing the mini SUNSCAN to its limits today: attempting a do-it-yourself solar magnetogram! 🧲☀️ Captured 3 spectra per polarization state around the magnetic-sensitive Fe I line (6302.5 Å) to measure the Zeeman splitting shift and map the magnetic field.

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Cédric Champeau @melix.champeau.me · 17/09/2026

Le diagramme que vous voyez ci-dessous est, si je ne me trompe pas, une première mondiale : la mesure par un astronome amateur des oscillations périodiques du soleil (toutes les 5 min environ). Je vous explique tout ça dans ce billet : melix.github.io/blog/2026/09... #astronomie #science

Un diagramme taille-fréquence des oscillations solaires, montrant un pic à ~3mHz, soit environ 5 minutes.

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Trestan @flare.observer · 10/09/2026

The reaction-diffusion style patterns that form in the background are interesting. A similar pattern forms when you repeatedly blur and sharpen an image.

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Trestan @flare.observer · 07/09/2026

I recently switched to Arch Linux after 7 years of using Gentoo (all of high school and 3/4 of college!) because I still need Qt 5 for a little while longer. It's not so bad!

A screen capture of an Arch Linux desktop. There is a taskbar at the top of the screen and a terminal (kitty) at the center. The terminal displays some system information using fastfetch. The taskbar and terminal are both blue, and the wallpaper is a photo of the Earth taken from the ISS, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ISS-40_Blue_and_white_part_of_Earth.jpg

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Christian Fröschlin @chrfrde.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Time lapse of first half of today's partial solar eclipse as seen from The Hague. 310 x 165 x 1.2 ms Ha < 0.7 Å in Lunt 40 at f/10. #astrophotography

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Trestan @flare.observer · 11/08/2026

Large solar prominence from 2024-03-24 ☀️🔭

Red false-color image of a large solar prominence captured with an amateur Hα telescope. The solar disk, which was overexposed, has been masked.

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Robin Bradshaw @en4rab.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Its Friday night and time to go wild! So here is an x-ray of a packet of McCoy's Thai sweet chicken crisps

An xray of a packet of ridged crisps showing lines of grey where the ridges make the crisp thicker and speckles of white i think where the salt has absorbed the xrays

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Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research @mpsgoettingen.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Using the #InouyeSolarTelescope and computer simulations, researchers from #NationalSolarObservatory, #mpsgoettingen and #HighAltitudeObservatory reveal tiny vortices on the Sun’s surface. They are signs of Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities. Published today in @nature.com . Video: NSF/NSO/AURA/MPS

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Trestan @flare.observer · 29/07/2026

My first first-author paper, "SADCat: A Catalog of Supra-Arcade Downflow Events in Solar Flares", is now published in Solar Physics! Dr. Ryan French (@ryanjfrench.bsky.social) and I present a catalog of 178 solar flares with visible SADs as a resource for the broader solar flare community. ☀️ 1/4

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Marijke Louise @marijkelouise.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Zonnevlek 4493. Maximilian-Vlad Teodorescu fotografeerde de 100.000 kilometer brede structuur vanuit het Instituut voor Ruimtewetenschappen in Roemenië. De aarde bevindt zich rechtstreeks in de inslagzone als er vandaag een X-vlam plaatsvindt. #SpaceWeather

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Trestan @flare.observer · 23/07/2026

Growth and evolution of NOAA solar active region 14493 in the corona (left; extreme ultraviolet, SDO/AIA 211 Å) and its associated sunspots in the photosphere (right; visible light, SDO/HMI continuum) between 2026 July 18 and 22. ☀️🔭

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Trestan @flare.observer · 22/07/2026

Sunspots, filaments, and plage flanking the eastern arc of the solar equator captured yesterday (2026-07-20) in Hα and oriented so that the equator splits the image vertically down the middle. ☀️🔭

A false-color red Hα image of the Sun's eastern equatorial region rotated 90° clockwise (i.e., south is left and north is right). Prominent bright plage are visible to the south of the equator with dark filaments weaving between individual bright patches. A single active region is visible north of the equator with two large sunspots. To the west of the active region is a large jagged-looking filament.

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Trestan @flare.observer · 18/07/2026

Wildfire smoke and clouds passing in front of the Sun this morning

A photo of the sky. The Sun appears at the center of the image as a bright featureless disk. Wildfire smoke and clouds are spread across the sky giving the solar disk an orange tinge. The image is framed by the silhouettes of leaves and branches.

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Trestan @flare.observer · 16/07/2026

Light wildfire smoke over New Jersey this afternoon

Clouds and the afternoon sun viewed through light wildfire smoke

Petting a black cat lying on its back. Its green eyes are looking up at the sky.

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Cédric Champeau @melix.champeau.me · 06/07/2026

Ca n'est pas pour me vanter (un peu quand même), mais cette image de la couronne solaire chaude (dite couronne K) est probablement une des plus résolues jamais faites en amateur. Le niveau de signal recherché ici est environ 1 million de fois plus faible que celui de la photosphère.

Une image du soleil. Le disque est masqué artificiellement. Autour, elle montre la couronne solaire chaude, dite couronne K, avec un niveau de détail important. Cette image a été obtenue depuis le sol, en dehors de toute éclipse.

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Vincent Ledvina @vincentledvina.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

The birth of AR 4479--like cells dividing--here are the last six days. This region possesses a 5% chance of an X-flare over the next 24 hours and has been increasing in notable flare activity recently. It is in the Earth-strike zone and positioned well for Earth-directed flare+CME activity.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day 🪐 @apod.shinyakato.dev · 28/06/2026

🔭 AR 4478: Giant Sunspot Group Image Credit & Copyright: Alfredo Vidal Pérez ap260628

The Sun is pictured in yellow with surface structure.
In the middle of the frame are many circuitous dark spots.
The edge of the Sun is visible at the top of the image.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

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Mike Christie @mikechristie.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

I hadn't processed all the video I took of the Sun yesterday. This is a sequence of images (13:57, 14:00, 14:02, 14:17) showing how rapidly that large prominence changed and disappeared. #Coronado Solarmax 🔭 and a #TeleVue 2.5x Powermate. #heliophysics #astrophotography

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Vincent Ledvina @vincentledvina.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Spending my Saturday today creating some better visualizations of aurora chasing tools such as how auroral substorms are correlated with GOES Mag readings. Here is an example where GOES Mag is well-correlated. Substorm initiation is around the same time as the spike in GOES Mag readings.

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Trestan @flare.observer · 09/06/2026

The Sun today in the seven SDO/AIA extreme ultraviolet bands from hottest (flaring plasma at ~10 billion K) to coolest (chromosphere plasma at ~10,000 K) plus SDO/HMI continuum. ☀️🔭

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Catherine Ryan Hyde @catherineryanhyde.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

I thought today's sun was an interesting example of how active regions often form in lines or bands. #Astronomy #AstroPhotography

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U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission @cpsc.gov · 29/05/2026

There are secrets in the Sun.

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Vincent Ledvina @vincentledvina.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Monster sunspots on the Sun's farside right now! Take a look at the most recent solar orbiter image showing a giant group of sunspots, perhaps two active regions. This has been generating large solar flare >X-class and CMEs. It will be visible on the Earth-facing disk in about a week or so.

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Burr Ito @ututuy.org · 02/05/2026

That the sun is a star like the ones we see at night is something that will never stop being astonishing to me. Its surface has a texture, the solar granules, which are the result of very strong convective motion. The sunspots are magnetic anomalies, a bit cooler than their surroundings. 🧪 🔭

Partial image of the solar disc using a telescope and an infrared filter (IR 850 nm pass filter). The sun appears yellow and with a sort of texture (the solar granules). There are also some sunspots. In the center of the pic is the sunspot group denominated AR 4225.

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Trestan @flare.observer · 23/04/2026

The decaying solar active region that formed within a coronal hole from last week sans JP2 compression artifacts ☀️

Pink false-color image of a solar active region as it appeared in the SDO/AIA 211 Å filter on 2026-04-14.

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Dr Adam J. Finley @adamfinley.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

A great review of the proposed mechanisms for switchback formation in the solar wind. These strong deflections in the local magnetic field are ubiquitous close to the Sun and have been linked to the heating and acceleration of the solar wind. arxiv.org/pdf/2604.16166

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Trestan @flare.observer · 18/04/2026

Fittingly, the patch of bright loops in the lobster coronal hole's clutch is a decaying anemone region. ☀️

False-color image of the anemone active region. The region appears as a patch of bright coronal loops almost completely surrounded by a dark coronal hole. The image was taken by SDO/AIA in 211 Å on 2026-04-14T20:01 UT.

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Don Davis @ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

The view of the Solar corona the Artemis II Astronauts had just after the Sun went behind the Moon. I have brought out the delicate fan like radial detail of the Sun's corona, whose entire span can be seen during Total Solar Eclipse from Earths surface where the Moon happens to just cover the Sun.

This is a photograph made by the Artemis II crew just after the Sun went behind the Moon from their vantage point. The inner Zodiacal Light and outer corona form a diffuse glow around the hidden Sun, from which radiates spikes and a general radial texture whose details constantly change.

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Vincent Ledvina @vincentledvina.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Adding in the COSMO K-COR coronagraph fills in the lower corona which is a crucial region to not only detect CMEs soon after they launch off from the Sun but also understand their rotations and twists as they are steered by magnetic fields before traveling further into space.

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NSF NCAR & UCAR @ncar-ucar.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

We’re not foolin’ you! The Mauna Loa Solar Observatory (MLSO) has officially reopened in time to assist NASA’s Artemis II mission with space weather warnings! It has been closed since Mauna Loa’s 2022 eruption blocked the road, making the site accessible only by helicopter for special operations.

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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 23/02/2026

<thud>! Another PUNCH paper dropped today! Congratulations to Sarah Gibson on this omnibus theoretical treatment of polarization in solar wind structures. Given the simplicity of the Thomson scattering mechanism, it's pretty amazing how deep the rabbit hole can go. 🧪☀️⚛️🔭🛰️ bit.ly/4qT9Kvs

Title bar of "Polarization Diagnostics Applied to Coronal Mass Ejeections and the Background Solar Wind", a newly published paper in the journal Solar Physics

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Reece @thiccreese.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Unprompted by anything specific… worth noting that WIRED’s ASME award nominated package, “How To Win a Fight,” includes a piece on how to advocate for your trans and nonbinary neighbors: www.wired.com/story/how-to...

wired.com

How to Advocate for Trans Rights in Your Community

Want to push back against the bigoted attacks targeting trans and gender-nonconforming people? Here are specific ways you can help—with your time, money, and everyday actions.

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Ryan McGrady @antisomniac.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

New development: Wikipedia has deprecated archive.ph/is/today, and will eventually remove hundreds of thousands of existing links. Massive thread here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped... (and FWIW I just verified the malicious code is still active on the captcha page)

en.wikipedia.org

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Archive.is RFC 5 - Wikipedia

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Stella-Luna Observatory @stellalunaobs.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Here's a full-disk view of Sun as it appeared yesterday. We were so excited capturing the filaprom that we let the full disk view go. This really shows off the extraordinary prominence activity that was going on midday, February 16! #sun #astronomy #solarobserving

The full circle disk image of the sun in hydrogen-alpha light (false color applied) depicts our local star with flame-like prominences at multiple locations around the rim -- the filament/prominence -- filaprom -- feature is at about the fout o'clock position on the disk.

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Trestan @flare.observer · 09/02/2026

Very clear solar physics bubble next to "Professional Astronomers & Astrophysicists" #heliophysics

Bluesky Map around the region labeled "Professional Astronomers & Astrophysicists". Solar physics-focused accounts seem to be clustered in the bottom right corner.

Same as previous image but with three solar accounts highlighted.

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Stella-Luna Observatory @stellalunaobs.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Farewell to Active Region 4366 -- Giant sunspot complex seen in Sun's northwest. The region continues to issue flares but is showing signs of decay. Soon the sunspot will disappear over the Solar limb. Sky was clear, and winds were light, but seeing was not good. We take what we can get! #sunspots

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Ian Ramjohn @iramjohn.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

It's good to talk about your love for Wikipedia. It's good to donate. But I firmly believe that it's even better to become an editor. Create an account. Make an edit (don't worry, you can't break things). Visit the Teahouse. Not necessarily in that order.

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Trestan @flare.observer · 02/01/2026

Here is how I have been contributing to Wikipedia in 2025. Happy New Year! #wikipediaYIR

Here is how I have been contributing to Wikipedia in 2025! Edits: 585, Discussions: 74, Thanks: 7, Thanked: 3 #wikipediaYIR

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Steve Herman @newsguy.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

The atomic ensemble time scale at the NIST Boulder campus has failed.

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astrotob.bsky.social @astrotob.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

A sunspot group over about an hour on 2022-09-03. It starts showing the photosphere on the "blue side" (shorter wavelength) of H-alpha, then shifts into H-alpha and finally goes back to the photosphere on the "red side" (longer wavelength). #sun #sunspots #hydrogenalpha #astronomy

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Stella-Luna Observatory @stellalunaobs.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

A few adjustments in data capture parameters was all it took to make a big difference in image processing and results! We're very pleased with Barlow-boosted views though we're still having some issues with achieving even lighting across whole-disk views... #sunspots

A close-crop of two sunspots viewed in hydrogen-alpha light -- an extensive field of filaments surrounds the spots.

The northeast quadrant of the Sun recorded October 3, 2025 in hydrogen-alpha light. Various features of the chromosphere are visible including several filaments, and prominences.

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Molly White @molly.wiki · 05/09/2025

This long read in The Verge does a remarkable job of describing how Wikipedia's editing community works, the project's strengths and weaknesses, and the threats it faces. www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

theverge.com

Wikipedia is under attack — and how it can survive

The site’s volunteers face threats from Trump, billionaires, and AI.

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Trestan @flare.observer · 29/07/2025

Testing this with SDO/AIA imagery of a series of eruptions from 2023 ☀️

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