Sunspot Observation at NearSys Station, 10 February 2018

SpaceWeather.com reported the appearance of a large sunspot group crossing the sun. This is at a time when the sun should be entering a quieter time as it approaches solar minimum.

The SunSpotter telescope showed five sunspots in the group now crossing the sun's center.

By counting pixels and comparing them to the sun's known diameter, the largest sunspot was determined to have an umbral diameter of 18,300 miles and a penumbral diameter of 30,500 miles. That means the largest sunspot is nearly four times wider than Earth's diameter.