The peak of solar maximum is behind us now, but the Sun is still putting on a decent show of sunspots 
Here’s the current status, images by projecting through my binoculars on to some white paper & then photographing with my iPhone 
From top right (east) to bottom left (west), we have Active Regions 4055 & 4058, then 4056, 4061, & 4060.
Current snapshot from https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/solar-activity/sunspot-regions.html in the next toot.
Here’s the current map from SpaceWeatherLive, as linked in the previous toot.
@markmccaughrean Amazing trick!
And yet something new I learn thanks to you! ;)
@hadon Cool – give it a shot.
You'll need to put some shielding around the binoculars to prevent direct sunlight from hitting the paper & lowering the contrast. But it's pretty easy to rig up using a piece of cardboard with some holes cut in it.
I'm pretty sure that the maximum is not yet over. The sun typically shows two peaks and while I think we're past the first one, we are in the calmer zone before the 2nd peak. I feat that will only come in 2026.
@knud I was just going on a post by David Berghmans, the PI of the EUI instrument on Solar Orbiter, but yes, a second peak is certainly possible. There are some though that think the peak occurred in 2024 already & that if there is a second peak, it’d be this year. Others think there were peaks in 2023 & 2024, so we’re already declining.
As is usually the case, we’ll only know when the peak was some time after it’s in the past.
@knud Here’s the current sunspot number plot from:
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression
You can see why some think we’ve had two peaks already, 2023 & 2024, but we will see.
Interesting, the prediction has then changed over the past months. Before it wasn't clear how the predictions really see the next year.