The Sun on April 18, 2024

The Sun on April 18, 2024

What a difference a day makes.

April 18, 2024

Tags: Solar Astronomy, Astronomy, Astrophotography, Photography

WARNING: When observing the Sun, be sure to do so safely! Use only equipment that is designed specifically for that purpose and is produced by reputable manufacturers. Follow their directions closely. Do not improvise your own filter material for solar observing. If you are careless, you risk instant and permanent vision loss or injury.

Yesterday I commented that the Sun, which has been coming out of a bit of a lull in activity, looked better in white light as opposed to the view in the H-alpha telescope. Today the opposite was true.

The star of the show today (no pun intended) was a massive prominence that has appeared in the last 24 hours. The chromosphere also showed some energetic plage regions, which appear as white areas in the following image:

Sun
Canon EOS M200 with Lunt Solar Systems 60mm H-alpha telescope, ISO 1600, 1/25 sec., f/8.

I also took an image of the Sun in white light. Using the very same exposure settings and postproduction edits, here is our nearest star as it appeared yesterday and today:

Long view down a sidewalk
Long view down a sidewalk
Side-by-side comparison of the Sun yesterday (left) and today (right). Both taken with Canon EOS M200 with Orion 102mm Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope and glass white light solar filter, ISO 100, 1/400 sec., f/13.

The Sun completes one revolution in about 27 days. In the two images above, you can see the slight progress in that rotation from top left to bottom right . Also visible is the evolution of sunspot groups, particularly the one in the middle of the solar disk.

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