The Sun: An Overview
Observing photographing, sketching and otherwise monitoring our stellar neighbor
and just a bit on how it all works
Steve Dodder
Stone Haven Observatory
Slide 1:  Intro
   Hello everyone, and thanks for giving me this opportunity.  As many of you already know, my lovely wife Rosie and I are Sun-Junkies.  We observe the Sun at every chance we get.  It’s not that we don’t like other objects-the moon, planets and deep sky objects we observe them a lot too-but there’s something about the immediacy of our own star that captivates us.  Being able to see what occurs on our nearest star allows us to grasp what we see in the deep sky.  It’s the same for professional solar scientists.  Observing and understanding the mechanisms that pervade our own star make it possible to relate them to stars both larger and smaller.  I hope to show you some of the things that so fascinate us.
   Now, it occurred to me that I was invited to give this talk after three consecutive months of solar show-and-tell, and the hope was to finally shut me up, once and for all.  Well, you can forget it, it won’t work!  If something neat happens up there, and I catch it in the act, by golly, I’m gonna share it!