Any solar events coming up?

After I became interested in telescopes and astronomy, the net was already
plastered with images of the Venus transit..so I missed that one. Will I
see
another in my lifetime? When is the next full or partial solar eclipse? I
will
probably get the Coronado PST in a few months (not that I need an eclipse
to enjoy it).
Thanks, -Tom

Will I see
another [Venus transit] in my lifetime? When is the next full or partial
solar eclipse?

next venus transit: 5 June 2012 (USA)
solar eclipse schedule:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fsd/astro/suneclipse.htm

"Tom" wrote in
:

After I became interested in telescopes and astronomy, the net was
already plastered with images of the Venus transit..so I missed that
one. Will I see
another in my lifetime? When is the next full or partial solar
eclipse? I will
probably get the Coronado PST in a few months (not that I need an
eclipse to enjoy it).
Thanks, -Tom

Solar events (other than eclipses and transits) tend not to be very
predictable. You can, however, go to http://www.spaceweather.com and get
lots of iformation on the current activity on the sun.

"Tom" wrote in message
...
After I became interested in telescopes and astronomy, the net was already
plastered with images of the Venus transit..so I missed that one. Will I
see
another in my lifetime? When is the next full or partial solar eclipse?
I
will
probably get the Coronado PST in a few months (not that I need an eclipse
to enjoy it).
Thanks, -Tom



Hi Tom.

Don't get put off by what I'm about to say, as I think you need to be warned
about this... We're currently in the decline of the Solar phase at the
moment, heading towards the "Solar minimum" period. Basically, the sun is
supposed to be getting less active until about 2006, when things will start
to pick up again (it's an 11 year cycle, I think). Although this is the
general trend, it doesn't mean that there won't be any sunspots, flares of
other cool stuff. Just recently we've had a burst of activity that's more
like a solar maximum than a minimum.

Regards

Colin Dawson
www.cjdawson.com