BIG SUNSPOT: After five days of non-stop growth (movie), sunspot 1029 has become the biggest active region of the year and a beautiful target for backyard solar telescopes. Amateur astronomer Lecoq Etienne sends this picture from Mesnil-Panneville, France:

The sunspot's large dark core is about the size of Earth, while the entire sunspot group stretches about 50,000 km from end to end. The behemoth has been crackling with magnetic activity, producing 10 C-class solar flares in the past few days. That more than triples the number of C-flares (3) previously detected in all of 2009. According to NOAA forecasters, there is a 5% chance of an even stronger M-classflare during the next 24 hours. Stay tuned for solar activity!