Full Sun Drawings Composites Observed from Space Weather Precidction Center (SWPC)

Full sun drawings are a form of synoptic analysis drawings, also known as Neutral line (NL) drawings which provide a comprehensive daily view of the sun for relevant solar feature of interest. To a somewhat limited extent depending on the provider the discerned features include neutral lines, coronal hole boundaries, active regions, plage, filaments and prominences. Also included are specific details about the coronal hole polarity, active region numbers, flare probabilities for each region and the proton event probabilities for each region. Brief descriptions of interesting solar features interest include: Active Regions - Active regions of the sun are localized areas on the Sun with intense magnetic fields. The strongest magnetic fields provide energy for solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Coronal holes (X-Ray and He 10830) - Coronal holes are unipolar magnetic regions that are the source of high speed solar winds. Coronal holes appear dark when seen in UV or X-rays, because they have a very low density. Traditionally, coronal holes have been identified from He I 10830A observations which can be made from ground based observatories. Faculae - Solar faculae are bright spots that form in the canyons between solar granules, short-lived convection cells several thousand kilometers across that constantly form and dissipate over timescales of several minutes. Faculae are produced by concentrations of magnetic field lines. Strong concentrations of faculae appear in solar activity, with or without sunspots. The faculae and the sunspots contribute noticeably to variations in the "Solar constant". The chromospheric counterpart of a facular region is called a plage Filaments/Prominences (H-alpha) - Filaments (on disk) and prominences (at the limb) are meta-stable regions of high density suspended in the low density corona. These are considered meta-stable because they can erupt becoming a coronal mass ejection but sometimes they just fade away. When they erupt they then become a geomagnetic storm threat. These eruptions are usually slow and don¿t often drive very large storms. Neutral Lines (Magnetogram) - Any time the magnetism field on the Sun organizes itself into large structures of one magnetic polarity or the other, there must be a neutral line at the boundary of the magnetic polarity. In active regions, neutral lines are associated with flaring and in the quiet sun filaments/prominences will lie along the neutral lines. Plage - Most of an active region's area is usually occupied by plage and whereas sunspots appear dark, plage shows up as bright areas surrounding sunspots. It is due to plage that the sun is brighter at solar maximum than at solar minimum. Areas of plage have strong magnetic fields, but the field is not as highly organized as it is in sunspots.