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The sun was more active this spring than it had been for many years.
Frequently there were a dozen or more major sunspots and several dozen
minor sunspots visible on the photosphere simultaneously. This picture was taken at 10AM on June 10, 2001 with a Nikon Coolpix 950 looking through a Meade 18mm Meade SWA eyepiece attached to a Celestron 102mm f/5 refractor. The objective lens of the scope was fitted with a filter made of BADDER solar film. Full screen image Full size image (1600x1598) |
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I had been observing the sun all morning, paying particular attention to
a storm that erupted about 8 AM. It started out as little more than a
bright "line" along the surface of the photosphere that grew rapidly in
length, thickness, and intensity. By 10AM, the "line" was about 100,000
miles long and its central portion had significant rotation, twisting into
an "S" shape what by now looked much like a tear in a piece of fabric.
Soon, the brightness of the line gave way to dark edges, which eventually
dominated completely such that there was no bright component remaining. A
prominent sunspot formed exactly in the center of rotation, with a small
sunspot along the tear near the periphery of the rotation disk.
Shortly after the large central spot became stable, a significant flair was
visible above the limb of the sun. The flair was highly collimated and was
travelling with incredible velocity. It eventually escaped the sun entirely
and became a coronal mass ejection.
This picture was taken at high noon on March 10, 2002 with a Nikon Coolpix 950 looking through a Meade 40mm SWA eyepiece attached to a 12" LX200. The objective lens of the scope was fitted with a 4" off-axis red energy rejection filter, and the eyepiece was fitted with a DayStar hydrogen alpha filter with a bandpass of 0.62 angstrom. The colors are an artifact caused by overexposing the sun in order to catch the much dimmer CME. Full screen image Full size image (1600x1200) |
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This interesting photo was sent to me by a friend who found it while
aimlessly surfing the web. I have no information as to the source of the
image. Full screen image Full size image {1600x1600) |