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Incredible Images of the Sun

Posted by michael on from the it's-the-yellow-thing.-outside. dept.

shelterit writes "A new swedish telescope facility in La Palma uses a new technology to remove the blurriness of the atmosphere to snap new and astonishingly sharp images of the sun. Want to have a closer look at the surface of it? Reminds me of paintings I did as a kid."

13 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. Also on MSNBC by Alcazar · · Score: 5, Informative

    MSNBC posted this article last night http://www.msnbc.com/news/834647.asp It might be more reachable...

  2. Re:Hmm by MtViewGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    While this new system works great for the visible spectrum of the Sun's output, you still want a space-based observatory to monitor the Sun's output in the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. That's why satellites like SOHO are still important.

  3. Buried in the site by dubbayu_d_40 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Took me awhile to find out how it works. In a nutshell: "The adaptive mirror actually changes shape 1000 times a second in order to adjust for the rapidly changing blurring of the image. Finally, we are using techniques to further sharpen the images after they have been captured by electronic cameras. In the best images the resolution is close to 0.1 arcseconds. This is a factor of 1200 better than 20/20 vision."

  4. another link by tanveer1979 · · Score: 5, Informative

    In case the above site gets roasted, space.com also has pics and article.
    This article has the links.You can also zoom in and use the viewer.

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  5. mirror! by caveat · · Score: 5, Informative

    well, at least the closeup of a sunspot and one of the filaments. but please be nice, it's a new powermac, i don't want it melted just yet :P

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  6. Re:GIFs??? by teridon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a JPEG.

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  7. Re:Where is the 1600x1200 version? by GnomeKing · · Score: 3, Informative

    apparently its here...

    whoops

  8. extra link. by budalite · · Score: 4, Informative

    Also available at APOD - Astronomy Picture of the Day . Enjoy.

  9. Re:GIFs??? by The+Original+Yama · · Score: 3, Informative

    At the very least they could've used PNGs. GIFs are evil.

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  10. Re:Hubble? by teridon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because Hubble is not designed to point at the sun. Thermally, Hubble was designed so that one side of the telescope is always pointed towards the sun. For thermally stability it must always remain that way. Are you going to personally replace Hubble's primary mirror when it cracks due to solar heating?

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  11. Re:Also on MSNBC One Question from article. by drudd · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, it's that big. Many sunspots are twice the diameter of the earth.

    The real reason they are "dark" is that they are cooler than the gas aronud them. Not that they are cold of course. From one of my astro textbooks:

    Temperature of sunspot: 3900K
    Temperature of surrounding photosphere: 5780K

    Resulting in approximately 1/5 the flux (bolometric flux goes as T^4).

    Doug

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  12. do it yourself by bcrowell · · Score: 4, Informative
    Sunspot observing is really easy. It's nice because you don't need a big telescope, and you can do it even from the light-polluted city. First stop your aperture down to a couple of inches if you have a bigger scope. (You can cut a hole in a piece of paper and put it over the mouth of the tube.) Then put a sock over your finderscope to avoid burning holes in your toes. Put an eyepiece in, but don't look through it! Point the scope at the sun. Don't use the finder (duh!) --- just watch the tube's shadow on the ground and make it as small as possible. Hold a piece of paper near the eyepiece, and adjust the focus either with the focus knob or by moving the paper in and out, or both. The sun's image is projected onto the paper.

    I actually do this sometimes for a whole class of students, and for that I need a big, bright image they can all see, so I use the full aperture of my 8-inch scope. You just have to be careful to limit how long you have it pointed at the sun, because the heat can destroy your eyepiece (melts the glue).

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  13. Pictures in the flames by Thornae · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you scroll ... you can see a nearly perfect image of a face.

    It's a phenomenon known as pareidolia , and is quite a fascinating subject in its own right. Briefly, the human mind tends to seek patterns that it recognizes. When faced with a chaotic input, the mind creates patterns where none exist. Carl Sagan argues that faces in particular are hardwired into our recognition centres.

    Incidentally, I can't see the face you're talking about there. (I'm probably not tired enough, as I find I'm very prone to seeing faces everywhere after an all-nighter.)
    I did find a yin/yang symbol, though...

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