A huge cluster of sunspots has rotated into earth's view over the weekend. Measuring more than 60,000 miles across, it has been dubbed by NASA scientists as the "Monster Sunspot."

Officially known as AR-1476, the sunspot complex is big enough to be seen by amateur skywatchers with half-decent equipment. Viewers must be wary and use filters however, as viewing the sun directly can seriously injure your eyes.

Since it has rotated into view, the immense AR-1476 has already been casting off several C class flares. A companion sunspot, 1471, is now moving away from earth’s view, but, before approaching its exit, it hurled off a M1 class flare generating a Coronal Mass Ejection Monday. Nighttime Skywatchers should watch for impressive auroras in the northern skies starting early tomorrow morning.

Sunspots appear as dark spots on the sun and are areas of intense magnetic activity, these areas at times throw off solar flares that jettison high energy radiation as clouds of electrons,ions, and atoms into space. They will produce radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum in all wavelengths. These flares, are classified as C, M and X flares, and range from C, the weakest to X, the strongest. C class flares tend to cause the least apparent effects, but still will produce impressive auroras, but the X class flares can cause massive radiation storms that can damage GPS, communications, power grids, and radars.

The sun goes through an 11-year cycle when solar flares can be as little as one a week, to several a day when at its strongest.

The highest concentration of protons ever directly measured occurred on January 20th, 2005, when a giant sunspot named NOAA 720 hurled a billion-ton cloud of electrified gas into space. The explosion accelerated the cloud at roughly one third the speed of light. It reached earth in a mere 15 minutes.

Our sun was very quiet during the period from 2005 until 2010 when it ramped up its activity advancing to the peak of solar cycle 24 which will last until approximately 2013.

Scientists expect this sunspot cluster to exhibit an impressive amount of activity as it transits across our view.