What's this? A white circle with some black spots? Well, what you see here is the surface of the sun. These are the today's sun spots. The spots are areas on the sun's surface which are little bit "cooler" then the rest. They are signs for some sun activity. Sometimes huge explosions (flares) can happen in these areas. During such a time it can happen, that a large mass of sunmaterial can be blown into the space(CME, Coronal Mass Ejactions). The result of such a sunstorm are northern lights, which sometimes reach more southern areas then normal. This picture was taken with a Minolta Dimage Z1 by using the complete zoom. No teleskop was used. I only protect the lense/camera with a "suneclipse shade". Caution: Never take photo's unprotected directly into the sun. Never look directly unprotected in the sun. Serious eyedamages or damages to your camera can be the result !!!!!