See the Sunspots for Yourself

As you might know, there are currently two huge groups of sunspots on the surface of the Sun. They’re really easy to see if you have a pair of binoculars or a telescope. Don’t look at the sun directly, you can damage your eyes, but there’s an easy way you can project an image of the Sun so you can see the spots. All you need is a piece of paper.

You line up the binoculars so that light from the Sun is passing through the eyepiece and onto a piece of paper you’re holding. Move the binoculars around a big and you’ll eventually see a big bright circle moving around your paper. That’s the Sun. Then, focus the eyepiece of the binoculars so that the circle of light has a nice crisp edge. You should be able to see the sunspots right away. NASA has some great instructions on how to do this.

Let me know how it goes!

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

P.S. Hotmail users are going to be experiencing some delays for the next while. There’s a problem with the way Hotmail tries to limit SPAM that’s clogging up all the mail they’re receiving. My newsletters are sometimes taking days before they’re getting accepted.

Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast with Dr. Pamela Gay. Here's a link to my Mastodon account.

Recent Posts

Insanely Detailed Webb Image of the Horsehead Nebula

Few space images are as iconic as those of the Horsehead Nebula. Its shape makes…

22 hours ago

Binary Stars Form in the Same Nebula But Aren’t Identical. Now We Know Why.

It stands to reason that stars formed from the same cloud of material will have…

24 hours ago

Earth Had a Magnetosphere 3.7 Billion Years Ago

We go about our daily lives sheltered under an invisible magnetic field generated deep inside…

1 day ago

Astronomers Think They’ve Found Examples of the First Stars in the Universe

When the first stars in the Universe formed, the only material available was primordial hydrogen…

1 day ago

First Light from Einstein Probe: A Supernova Remnant

On 9 January 2024, the Einstein probe was launched, its mission to study the night…

2 days ago

Galaxies Evolved Surprisingly Quickly in the Early Universe

Anyone familiar with astronomy will know that galaxies come in a fairly limited range of…

2 days ago