Tag Archives: photosphere

Solar Mosaics

Here are two mosaics of the Sun stitched together with images collected on Wednesday afternoon. These images were taken with a Nikon D90 through a 12″ Meade SCT fitted with an H-alpha filter. The first mosaic is of the full disc of the Sun. There are some details, but the glare of the photosphere, even through the very narrow passband of an H-alpha filter, limits what can be seen in the chromosphere and corona. In the second image, the transfer curve for image was manipulated to eliminate the photosphere and highlight the chromosphere and corona. Notice on the lower right portion of the limb, there is one small, bright, prominence, and several faint and larger prominences. (since the image is inverted, this would be the north-eastern side of the limb.

Full disc mosaic of the Sun in H-alpha emission.
Full disc mosaic of the Sun in H-alpha emission.
Full-disc image of the chromosphere and lower corona in H-alpha.
Full-disc image of the chromosphere and lower corona in H-alpha.

Solar Videos

Here are some nice videos of the Sun as taken by my honors student using our 12″ Meade, a Meade electronic eyepiece, and an H-alpha filter. The wind was brutal, so the images are rather shaky.

This first video highlights the granulation in the photosphere, and the glow of the chromosphere evident above the photosphere when looking at the edge of the solar disc.

This clip shows a small prominence arching above a small sunspot group that had already rotated out of view.