Wednesday, June 4, 2008

The Sharpest View of the Sun

This stunning picture shows remarkable and mysterious details in the vicinity of the central dark region of a planet-sized sunspot in one of the sharpest views ever from the surface of the sun. Just released, the picture was taken with the Swedish solar telescope now in its first year of operation on the Canary island of La Palma. In addition to the functions described as hair and dark channels are visible in the bright cores threads that are in the sunspot, which hitherto unknown and unexplored solar phenomena. The filaments "new, dark seeds are visible at that thousands of kilometres long, but only about 100 km wide. The solution offers 100 km wide or less is a milestone in astronomy and solar technology has been achieved here using sophisticated adaptive optics, digital image processing stacks, and processing techniques to combat the effects of atmospheric blurring. At optical wavelengths, these images are even sharper than current space-based observatories can produce solar. Incorporated on July 15, 2002, the sunspot shown, is the largest the group of sunspots cataloged as solar active region AR 10030