Robin Williamson wrote:
"Ernie Wright" wrote in message
...
snip
Robin replied Yup, it's a big one alright. . . I did get a look
though and it's large.

I got in a couple of hours of white light viewing of sunspot 756 as the
Sun poked in and out of the local clouds.

This sunspot is very impressive in size and is in the shape of an
extended comma. (It's definitely worth taking a look at if any of your
lurkers have missed it.) The central core is almost rectangular and
appears to consist of two side by side overlaping spots. It is
reminiscent of a barred galaxy in appearance. The extended "tail",
which includes a trail of smaller spots, wraps about 200=B0 around the
central core.

At about 2005/05/02 01:00 UTC (2005/05/01 7:00pm MDT Local Time) I made
a rough measurement of its maximal diameter (with the tail) and the
major axis of the central core using a graduated reticule:

75" - maximum diameter of the core with tail - about 54500 kilometers
46" - major axis of the central core - approx. 33400 kilometers

Is the emergence of this sunspot somehow related to the large coronal
hole seen the Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) 284 A
angstrom images? http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/
http://spaceweather.com/

- Canopus56

P=2ES. - The estimated linear distance is a simple proportional
calculation based on the NASA JPL Horizon Ephemeris Generator (
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eph ) listing of 1905" diameter for
the Sun for 1:00 UTC 5/2/2005 and my OP.