Physics and Astronomy at Western What's Happening

The sun as seen with a CCD through our Solar Telescope.

Pretty Cool huh? Since the solar telescope has an Hα filter, this is an image that is sensitive only to light emitted by hydrogen in the Sun’s chromosphere. After careful analysis, I must conclude that the Sun is most likely a ball of glowing hydrogen.

I wanted some more close-up views. Fortunately, we have a Barlow lens, and within a few minutes going around the edge of the Sun, I saw this:

(the black fuzzy dot is a speck of dust, either on the CCD or in the telescope). With a slightly longer exposure, the Sun is saturated, but the prominences jump out:

Now let’s hope it looks just as pretty on Tuesday!