Visions of Our Local Star #18

In this close up view of the eclipse, the Moon is about to devour a big prominence as it continues on its journey across the face of the Sun. Looking closely at the edge of the Moon shows that it is not completely smooth due to its rugged terrain of mountains and craters. This photograph was taken at 10:32 am from the UK, showing the Sun approximately 24 minutes into the eclipse. The narrowband hydrogen-alpha filter used to take this image enables us to peer into the chromosphere, the lower region of the solar atmosphere. At this wavelength we can see many of the Sun's most interesting phenomena, including sunspots, prominences and filaments. The image is presented in a false colour pale...View all