Hi Doves.

Just to correct something Deborah posted a couple of days ago.  Concerning the
largest solar flare in history her link of:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3242353.stm

from the  article she quoted was actually talking about a flare that happened
in November of2003 - check the date at the top of the article.

That does not lessen the issue that there has been a significant amount of
solar flare activity lately.  We are still in the time that should be
considered the 11 year quiet period between major flare activity and yet, there
does not seem to be a whole lot of quiet time on the Sun these days at all!
You can catch a lot of the action at the government web site
http://www.sec.noaa.gov/today.html.

What we had the other day was just barely an X-1 or an X-2 class flare and
several M class flares since then (Very strong but significantly weaker).  by
comparison, what took place in 2003 was estimated at an X-20.  It is estimated
because their scales didn't go up that high thinking that it would never
happen.

Your brother in Christ.

Doug Blakemore