Comparing sizes and distances.

 

Sunspot Group captured with the JPO 127mm apo refractor 

with a Baader white light filter, a x3 Televue Barlow and a QHY video camera.

" I was suddenly struck by how large the Sun is, how huge the Solar System is and how relatively small our home the Planet Earth is.

Partly, this realisation was brought about by viewing the image of the Earth as seen from the Artemis 2 spacecraft on its way to the Moon and otherwise by the thought that Voyager 1, travelling at 37,000 miles per hour since 1977, has only just left the influence of the Sun and is now at a distance of 'one light day' . For reference the Sun is approximately 9 light seconds (93,000,000 miles) from Earth and the nearest star Proxima Centauri is 4.25 light years distant.

Pip Stakkert used a photo editor to apply an image of the Earth at the same approximate scale as a sunspot. As you can see, sunspots can be very very large or conversely the Earth is really quite small, as soon as you leave it and look back! " - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory the UK's most easterly observatory.