A timelapse of the late October solar activity

Awesome time-lapse video features show 15 days of solar action from October 14th to 30th, 2014, showing sunspot AR 2192, the largest sunspot of the last two solar cycles or more than two decades. During the transition time Sunspot 2192 produced six X-class and 37 M-class solar flares. 

The animation shows the Sun in the ultraviolet 304 ångström wavelength, and plays at a rate of 52.5 minutes per second. It is composed of more than 17,000 images, 72 GB of data produced by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The animation has been rotated 180 degrees so that south is "up". 

The original animation has been rendered in 4K. The spectacular time-lapse video is courtesy of James Tyrwhitt-Drake, a student at the University of Victoria and research at the school's Advanced Microscopy Facility.

Audio processed from SOHO HMI data by Alexander G. Kosovichev.

Image data courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.

Image processing and animation by James Tyrwhitt-Drake.

Featured image: SDO's AIA/304 image of X1.7 solar flare on October 22, 2014. (Courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.)