I am looking forward to more pictures and video from this event.

STRONG SOLAR ACTIVITY: New sunspot 1302 is crackling with strong solar flares. This morning it unleashed an X2-class flare--its second X-flare in two days--quickly followed by an M7-class eruption. So far the blasts have not been Earth-directed, but this could change in the days ahead as the sunspot turns toward our planet. The sunspot is growing and there is no sign that it will quiet down soon. Visit http://spaceweather.com for movies and updates.

Update: September 26, 2011from http://spaceweather.com/

STRONG SOLAR ACTIVITY: Having already unleashed two X-flares since Sept. 22nd, sunspot AR1302 appears ready for more. The active region has a complex "beta-gamma-delta" magnetic field that harbors energy for strong M- and X-class eruptions. Flares from AR1302 will become increasingly geoeffective as the sunspot turns toward Earth in the days ahead.

On Sunday, Sept. 25th, Dutch astrophotographer Emil Kraaikamp took a magnificent picture of the active region, which is so big only half of it fits on the screen. Click to view the entire sunspot:

"This is how the sunspot looked through my solar-filtered 10-inch Newtonian telescope," says Kraaikamp. "Due to the always-variable daytime seeing here in the Netherlands, it took a couple of hours to finally capture one good set of images, but it was well worth the effort to get this view of the huge sunspot formation."

more images: from Andy Devey of Barnsley South Yorkshire; from Alan Friedman of Buffalo, NY; from Monika Landy-Gyebnar of Balatonfured, Hungary; from Piet Berger of Simpelveld, Netherlands; from Howard Eskildsen of Ocala, Florida; from Dzmitry Kananovich of Tallinn, Estonia; from Chris Schur of Payson, Az; from John Stetson of Falmouth, Maine; from Grenier of Paris France; from Maximilian Teodorescu of Magurele, Romania; from Cai-Uso Wohler of Bispingen, Germany; from Philippe Van den Doorn of Rixensart, Belgium; ;