Monika Landy-Gyebnar

Monika Landy-Gyebnar took this picture of the rising sun on May 1 from Veszprem, Hungary. "The image I saw when the sun appeared was incredible!" she said in a posting to SpaceWeather.com. "This was the strongest mirage effect on the sun I have ever seen!" In this image, the mirage makes the sunspot region known as AR 1471 look like three dots in a row, toward the lower left area of the sun's disk.

The next month promises to be filled with astronomical wonders, including this weekend's "supermoon," an annular solar eclipse later this month, and a last-in-a-lifetime transit of Venus. Here are a few images to get you in the mood for those cosmic glories.

Hungarian photographer Monika Landy-Gyebnar snapped an unusual picture of a solar mirage on May 1, showing the sun's distorted disk at the eastern horizon. She told SpaceWeather.com that she expected to see the mirage, because she lives in an area where morning fog usually collects in the valley, "so it is a location colder than its surroundings." The temperature difference often creates a shimmering mirage effect, but Landy-Gyebnar was amazed by the strength of the effect on that particular morning.

"The distortion reached the region where the big sunspot 1471 is located as a visible dark dot," she wrote. "I saw the sunspot disappearing and appearing again, then its mirage appeared above the original spot higher on the solar disk, then a third mirage spot appeared. ... I was shivering with beauty!"

For details, check out Landy-Gyebnar's gallery at SpaceWeather.com and her video clip on YouTube.

The picture above served as today's "Where in the Cosmos" picture puzzle on the Cosmic Log Facebook page, and Brittany Pedersen was the first to figure out that the photo showed a sunspot mirage. To reward her sharp vision, I'm sending her a pair of solar viewing glasses from Astronomers Without Borders. Stay tuned for the next "Where in the Cosmos" quiz on Facebook in a week, and you might win some solar spectacles as well.

Landy-Gyebnar's photographs, and the glasses, serve as good reminders that skywatchers should never gaze at the shining sun without proper eye protection, even during the annular solar eclipse coming up on May 20. To get ready for that rare event, check out my two-part series and "Virtually Speaking" podcast.

Another big sky event is coming up this weekend, when the moon turns full during its closest approach to Earth. That means the moon will be 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the norm — leading many to call the sight a "supermoon." So much has been made of Saturday night's full moon that Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait is counseling rhetorical restraint (with an artistic assist from Sci-ence's Maki Naro). But even Phil says it's worth going out and looking at the moon, on Saturday night or on any night. "It's bright and silvery and lovely and you can see features with your naked eye and with a telescope you'll see tons more," he writes.

If you have a great supermoon picture to share, please pass it along via msnbc.com's FirstPerson "Sky Highlights" upload page. We'll put together a gallery of our favorite moon views over the weekend.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been looking at the moon lately, in preparation for the transit of Venus on June 5. That's when the planet Venus makes a stately march across the disk of the sun over the course of six hours. The last time Venus did that was eight years ago, and it won't happen again until the year 2117. So the scientists behind Hubble, like many other astronomers, want to take a look.

As explained in today's image advisory, the sun is too bright for Hubble to observe directly. Instead, Hubble's scientists will check the light rays that are reflected by the moon and see whether they can discern the faint signature of the light that passed through Venus' atmosphere.

"Imprinted on that small amount of light are the fingerprints of the planet's atmospheric makeup," the Hubble team said in its advisory. "These observations will mimic a technique that is already being used to sample the atmospheres of giant planets outside our solar system passing in front of their stars. In the case of the Venus transit observations, astronomers already know the chemical makeup of Venus's atmosphere, and that it does not show signs of life on the planet. But the Venus transit will be used to test whether this technique will have a chance of detecting the very faint fingerprints of an Earthlike planet, even one that might be habitable for life, outside our solar system that similarly transits its own star."

Hubble will observe the moon for seven hours on the day of the transit to get a good sampling of spectroscopic data. Here's a practice image of the impact crater Tycho, acquired on Jan. 11: 

D. Ehrenreich / IPAG / CNRS / UJF / NASA / ESA

This mottled landscape showing the impact crater Tycho is among the most violent-looking places on our Moon. Astronomers didn't aim NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to study Tycho, however. The image was taken in January as part of the preparation for observing the transit of Venus across the sun's face on June 5.

Finally, here are a couple of videos to end the week with: On one end of the time spectrum, there's an hourlong recap of this week's Space Hangout, in which several space scribes (including yours truly) review the far-out news of the week. On the other end, there's a six-minute mashup of cosmic images from NASA, titled "Pursuit of Light." The montage starts out with Earth imagery, then moves on to shots of the moon, the sun, Mars, Jupiter and its moons, the Saturnian system and asteroids. Then you'll see nebulas, the remnants of supernova blasts, and interacting galaxies. How much farther out can you get?

More far-out imagery:

• NASA probe captures close-ups of Saturnian moons
• Earth's beauty dazzles in astronaut video from space
• Slideshow: Month in Space Pictures for April 2012

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Find out more about solar storms and their effects. Larger version of Reuters graphic.

More about solar storms:

• Solar storm hits Earth ... but so far, no problems
• Raging solar storm 'blinds' Venus Express probe
• Cosmic Log archive on auroral displays
  

  ---

NASA / LMSAL via SpaceWeather. com

This color-coded image combines observations made by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in several extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, highlighting a bright X-class flare toward the upper left of the sun's disk on March 6.

 The sun unleashed one of the biggest flares ever seen during its current activity cycle late Tuesday — an X5.4-class outburst strong enough to trigger a radio blackout. The resulting geomagnetic storm could affect electrical grids, communication links, satellite navigation systems and airline schedules over the next couple of days.

The outburst at 7:24 p.m. ET was followed about an hour later by an X1.3-class blast. Solar flares are rated on a letter-plus-number scale, with X being the most powerful category. Usually the numbers run from 1 to 9, but X-class flares can run higher. The highest reading recorded recently is an X28, observed in 2003.

Joe Kunches, a space scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center, says the double blast made for a "Super Tuesday," in a different sense from the political meaning.

The big question is, what effect will this solar activity have on Earth? The solar blasts threw off waves of electrically charged particles known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. Those waves are now speeding outward, and space-weather forecasters expect them to touch off strong geomagnetic storms when they interact with Earth's magnetic field late Wednesday and early Thursday.

"The most northern states in the 'Lower 48' should have a chance to see the aurora," the prediction center reported on Facebook.

Could something more serious happen? All this activity is already whipping up an S3 solar radiation storm. "Such a storm is mainly a nuisance to satellites, causing occasional reboots of onboard computers and adding noise to imaging systems," SpaceWeather.com's Tony Phillips said.

The coming geomagnetic storm is predicted to reach the G3 level, which could trigger alarms on electrical power systems and create intermittent problems for GPS navigation services. Some airline flights are likely to be rerouted so they don't fly so close to the poles, and problems could arise with communication systems in polar regions. That's the bad news. The good news is that NASA and NOAA have lots of resources in space to monitor solar activity, giving network operators more time to assess and prepare.

Check out NOAA's chart of space weather scales to learn more about what S3, G3 and the other storm desigations mean.

Experts at the Space Weather Prediction Center say the storm generated by the X5.4-class flare is on a trajectory to deliver a glancing blow rather than a direct hit on Earth, but they caution that the sunspot region responsible for the flare, AR1429, "remains potent, and subsequent activity is certainly possible."

For now, chances are that the most noticeable effect for most people will be an upswing in the number of fantastic pictures of the northern lights. AR1429 has been acting up over the past few days, and SpaceWeather.com has been adding plenty of stunners to its aurora gallery. If you get a nice snapshot, please consider sharing it with us via the Cosmic Log Facebook page or msnbc.com's FirstPerson in-box.

Update for 4:40 p.m. ET March 7: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center reports that the coronal mass ejections sent out on Tuesday are projected to impact Earth and Mars as well as several interplanetary spacecraft, including NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the Messenger probe at Mercury and the sun-watching STEREO-B satellite. The NASA advisory also notes that the X5.4-class flare was the strongest solar outburst since an X6.9 blast on Aug. 9, 2011. In that previous case, the resulting CME was not directed at Earth, and no ill effects were felt.

Update for 5 p.m. ET March 7: A lot of commenters are talking about the Carrington Event of 1859, a solar storm that was so strong it frazzled telegraph wires. That was associated with what was surely an off-the-scale solar flare, much more powerful than the X28 referenced at the beginning of this item — so I've rephrased that reference accordingly.

More about solar storms and auroras:

• Northern lights shine through a crack
• Rocket flies into the northern lights
• Aurora extravaganza glows in space
• Planet looks back at the northern lights
• Slideshow: The best of the northern lights
• Cosmic Log's auroral archive

This item was first published at 12:30 a.m. ET March 7.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

NASA / SDO

An "intensitygram" from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the double-barreled sunspot active region 1416 pointing toward Earth.

As solar activity builds toward an expected peak in 2013, a double-barreled sunspot has been doubling in size over the past couple of days and now has the potential to shoot significant eruptions in our direction.

It's not certain that active region 1416 will erupt with coronal mass ejections as violent as the blasts that were thrown off by the sun late last month. But it has developed a mixed "beta-gamma" magnetic field that packs enough energy to throw off medium-scale solar flares, SpaceWeather.com reports.

"Any such eruptions this weekend would be Earth-directed as the sunspot turns to face our planet," SpaceWeather's Tony Phillips wrote.

Medium-size M-class flares are generally associated with the kinds of solar storms that produce enhanced auroral lights, but not huge inconveniences on Earth. It's the X-class flares you really have to watch out for: That level of solar storming could affect radio communications as well as satellites and electrical grids if the operators of those systems aren't careful.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have a wide array of space assets monitoring the sun, and for now all's quiet on the solar front. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center reported some problems tracking the Advanced Composition Explorer, a satellite that plays a key role in tracking solar storms, but those problems are expected to go away as ACE's orientation with respect to the sun improves.

NASA / ESA / SOHO / NOAA

The heart-shaped coronal mass ejection can be seen at about the 10 o'clock position on this image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.

The prediction center's Facebook page reports that on Friday, the sun threw off a slow-moving coronal mass ejection, or CME — in the shape of a heart, no less. "A preliminary model run predicts this CME will arrive, appropriately enough, on Valentine's Day," NOAA reports. So if you're out with your Valentine that night, particularly in Scandinavia or Canada, watch the skies. Even if the earth doesn't move, the aurora might glow.

Meanwhile, the sunspot region that caused all the auroral fireworks last month, known as AR1402, has moved around the far side of the sun. Solar scientists will be interested to see how that region has changed when it comes back into view. We're still a year out from the anticipated peak in the sun's 11-year activity cycle, so there'll be lots of sun-watching ahead. The best ways to keep track on a daily basis is to check in with NOAA's space weather center and SpaceWeather.com.

In the meantime, catch up on your oohing and ahhing over the northern lights by clicking on these links:

• Auroral extravaganza glows in space
• Planet looks back at northern lights
• Auroras spark awe across the north
• Northern lights go way, way south
• Speed through Lapland's lights
• Beautiful blasts from solar storms
• Get a video view of Canada's aurora
• Slideshow: The best of the northern lights
• Cosmic Log's auroral archive

Update for 4:45 p.m. ET Feb. 11: Speak of the devil ... SolarHam.com reports that AR1402 has indeed made its reappearance on the edge of the sun's disk and was observed firing off C-class solar flares.

Update for 2:30 p.m. ET Feb. 12: The double-barreled active region is moving off its direct-fire orientation as the sun continues to rotate, and although the sunspots have continued to grow, it's becoming less likely that any CME from that region would score a direct hit on Earth and its magnetic field. So for now, the most significant effect we can look forward to is a round of colorful northern lights around Valentine's Day.  

Tip o' the log to Jason Major at Universe Today.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

NASA via SpaceWeather.com

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captures a picture of sunspot 1402 unleashing an X2-class solar flare on Friday, seen in ultraviolet wavelengths.

The sunspot responsible for setting off a colorful round of northern lights over the past week got off a doozy of a parting shot today, just as it was about to pass around the edge of the sun's disk.

Sunspot 1402 let loose with an X-class flare, the most powerful class of solar outburst, at 1:37 p.m. ET today, and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a sequence of ultraviolet images as the blast went out. Fortunately, this one was not directed right at Earth.

SpaceWeather.com says NASA's Goddard Space Weather Laboratory detected a "spectacular" coronal mass ejection blasting away from the sun at 5.6 million mph (2,500 kilometers per second). CMEs send out electrically charged particles that can eventually interact with Earth's magnetic field — but here again, this particular ejection is not heading directly for Earth. There's a chance that it might strike a glancing blow on Monday or so, sparking another bout of auroral displays.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center reports that the flare created R3-level radio blackouts at about 1:30 p.m. ET today. That level can result in wide-area loss of high-frequency radio comunication, as well as a temporary degradation of low-frequency GPS signals, but no significant problems came to light immediately. Solar radiation levels are elevated — which may lead to the rerouting of some airline flights. NOAA's guide to space weather scales explains what's what.

Active regions move across the sun's disk from left to right, as seen from earth, so sunspot 1402 is just about to go around to the far side of the sun. There's a chance that the sunspot will come around again as the sun goes through its 27-day rotational cycle, and there are certain to be more (and stronger?) outbursts as the sun approaches the peak of its 11-year activity cycle in 2013 or so.

Keep a watch on SpaceWeather.com, NOAA's space weather website and the prediction center's Facebook page for updates during the weekend. And if you're living the high-latitude life, keep a watch for better-than-usual auroras as well.

Update for 4:05 p.m. ET: Sunday's solar storm not only blasted past Earth; it also sent solar particles streaming by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, which is on its way to the Red Planet. Today, the Southwest Research Institute reported that one of the instruments on the spacecraft, the Radiation Assessment Detector, measured the effects of the solar storm.

"We only have a few hours of data downloaded from the RAD so far, but we clearly see the event," RAD principal investigator Don Hassler, science program director in SwRI's Space Studies Department, said in a news release. "It will be very interesting to compare the RAD data, collected from inside the capsule, with the data from other spacecraft."

Once Mars Science Laboratory gets to its destination, it will measure radiation levels on the Martian surface to determine what the effect might have been on past life ... as well as the radiation effects that astronauts can expect to experience during future interplanetary missions.

Update for 10:30 p.m. ET: In a Facebook update, the Space Weather Prediction Center says its "forecasters and scientist believe there will be very little effects of the CME observed here at Earth." The update also provides a killer video of the eruption, as seen in ultraviolet imagery from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. SpaceWeather.com, meanwhile, quotes experts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab as saying the CME "will just miss Earth when its edge passes by our planet on Jan. 30-31."

On tonight's "Nightly News," NBC's Brian Williams talked about a time-lapse video showing the aurora over Norway earlier this week. We included this video in Wednesday's northern lights roundup, but it's nice to hear Brian marvel over it again:

 More auroral glories:

• Planet looks back at northern lights
• Auroras spark awe across the north
• Northern lights go way, way south
• Speed through Lapland's lights
• Beautiful blasts from solar storms
• Get a video view of Canada's aurora
• Slideshow: The best of the northern lights
• Cosmic Log's auroral archive

The sun has unleashed a blast in Earth's direction, and that should cause brighter-than-normal auroral displays this weekend. Skywatchers won't be the only ones monitoring the storm: The folks in charge of power grids and orbiting satellites will also be on guard to make sure the disturbance in the (geomagnetic) force won't be disruptive.

Word of today's blast, technically known as a coronal mass ejection or CME, comes via SpaceWeather.com's Tony Phillips. NASA says the outburst sparked an M3.2-class solar flare, as well as a stream of electrically charged particles that is due to interact with Earth's magnetic field on Saturday. "Viewers can be on the lookout for increased aurora," NASA says.

M-class flares are capable of causing brief radio blackouts near the poles as well as minor radiation storms, but it's unlikely that this one will disrupt communication or power transmission networks. The forecast would be different if it were an X-class storm heading our way. As the sun approaches the peak of its 11-year activity cycle in 2013 or so, we can expect to see more powerful solar outbursts. 

To keep tabs on the prospects for northern (or southern) lights, check SpaceWeather.com as well as the University of Alaska's Aurora Forecast website. The higher your latitude, the better your chances of seeing the lights. If you miss them, never fear: SpaceWeather.com will surely update its January aurora gallery over the weekend. And if you snag a great picture that you'd like to share, pass it along via the Cosmic Log Facebook page or msnbc.com's FirstPerson in-box.

Don't miss the Jan. 22 update on this solar storm. Click here!  ;-)

More great auroral views:

• Northern lights go way, way south
• Speed through Lapland's lights
• Beautiful blasts from solar storms
• Get a video view of Canada's aurora
• Cosmic Log's auroral archive

Jay Pasachoff / Williams College

The moon's disk takes a bite out of the sun during Friday's partial solar eclipse, as seen from Invercargill in New Zealand. The last of 2011's four solar eclipses was visible only from an area in southern latitudes taking in New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa and Antarctica.

Today was "Black Friday" for some folks in southern climes, and not because it's the big shopping day after Thanksgiving: A partial solar eclipse made the sky just a little bit darker in areas of New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa and Antarctica.

Some observers spotted only a slight grazing of the sun, while others — such as Williams College astronomer Jay Pasachoff and his eclipse-chasing colleagues — could see the moon take an appreciable bite out of the sun's disk in the skies over Invercargill in southern New Zealand. "After an in-and-out, off-and-on-rain day, we are very pleased," Pasachoff said in a report from Sky & Telescope's Kelly Beatty.

Pasachoff passed along another perspective on the eclipse, taken from the seventh-floor offices of the New Zealand Department of Conservation in Invercargill. The hand in the picture belongs to Steve Butler, who works for the government agency.

Jay Pasachoff / Williams College

The partially eclipsed sun can be seen through a filter held in front of a seventh-floor window in Invercargill. Appropriate safety protection, such as specially designed solar filters, should always be used when gazing at the sun, even during a partial eclipse.

"I gave him one of my solar filters to hold so I could take that photo (Nikon D200)," Pasachoff told me in an email. "He is the regional project manager and was able to grant us access to that site where we were shielded from the wind ... aside from the fierce wind that came through the opened window."

Antarctica's researchers had what were potentially the best seats in the house, with up to 90 percent of the sun's diameter blacked out. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound as if the weather was all that cooperative down at the bottom of the world.

Today's event was the last of four partial solar eclipses during 2011, but there's one more eclipse to close out the year. A total lunar eclipse will be visible from half the world on Dec. 10-11, with best viewing available from Australia, Asia and the Pacific. North Americans will see the beginning stages of the eclipse, while Europeans and Africans will catch the ending.

Next year brings a new crop of solar spectacles, including an annular "ring" eclipse visible from Asia, the Pacific and the western U.S. on May 20, and a total solar eclipse visible from Australia and the South Pacific on Nov. 13. 

More eclipse treats:

• Solar eclipse dims skies in Europe, Middle East
• Marvel at the 'Midnight Sun' eclipse
• The sun gets double-crossed
• Eclipse views turn moon into a star 

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.