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Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
October 18, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
October 18, 2014

-Most rainbows are caused by light reflected once, or sometimes twice, inside raindrops. Larger numbers of reflections are possible, but the rainbows they create are very rare. After years of searching, atmospheric optics experts have sighted a rainbow caused by five reflections, the elusive 5th-order rainbow. Details here:
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz1063.htm
Publication: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/ao/abs...ri=ao-54-4-B26

-A large and active sunspot is rotating over the sun's southeastern limb on Oct. 17th. J. P. Brahic sends this picture of the behemoth to spaceweather.com from Uzès, France:

"I inserted a picture of Earth for scale," says Brahic. The sunspot's primary dark core could swallow our entire planet with room to spare.

This sunspot could cause a sharp increase in solar activity over the weekend. Earlier this week, while it was still hidden behind the southeastern limb, the active region unleashed several M-class solar flares and hurled a massive CME into space. Considering the fact that the blast site was partially eclipsed by the edge of the sun, those flares were probably much stronger than their nominal classification. Now that the sunspot has revealed itself, X-flares may be in the offing.

Astro Picture of the Day:
October 18, 2014

Source:
Cosmic clouds form fantastic shapes in the central regions of emission nebula IC 1805. The clouds are sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from massive hot stars in the nebula's newborn star cluster, Melotte 15. About 1.5 million years young, the cluster stars are toward the right in this colorful skyscape, along with dark dust clouds in silhouette against glowing atomic gas. A composite of narrowband and broadband telescopic images, the view spans about 30 light-years and includes emission from ionized hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms mapped to green, red, and blue hues in the popular Hubble Palette. Wider field images reveal that IC 1805's simpler, overall outline suggests its popular name - The Heart Nebula. IC 1805 is located about 7,500 light years away toward the boastful constellation Cassiopeia.