2 posts tagged “astronomy”

13 May 2008

Is something lurking just over the sun's eastern limb? Yesterday's impressive display suggests the answer is yes. Amateur astronomers in Europe and North America witnessed fountains of hot, magnetized gas surging over the eastern edge of the sun. "My hard drive is full of movies," says Didier Favre of Brétigny sur Orge, France, who counted no fewer than seven eruptions.

Veteran observer Pete Lawrence of Selsey, UK, took the picture above. "This is the first time I've ever seen material moving visually away from the surface of the Sun," he says. "What a treat!"

Readers, if you have a solar telescope, train it on the eastern edge of the sun. "The area," says Lawrence, "appears full of promise."

UPDATE: Observers are reporting a sunspot (or proto-sunspot) emerging from the direction of yesterday's prominence: #1, #2, #3.

more images: from Britta Suhre of Dortmund, Germany; from Monty Leventhal of Sydney, Australia; from Les Cowley of eastern England; from Stephen Ames of Hodgenville, Kentucky; from Cai-Uso Wohler of Bispingen, Germany; from C. Miller and J. Stetson of South Portland, Maine; from Malcolm Park of London, England.

MOON HALOES: When moonlight shines through icy clouds, the usual result is a simple pair of moondogs. But recently near Mt. Hekla, Iceland, photographer Agust Gudmundsson saw much more:

"It was a spectacular night," says Gudmundsson who needed two pictures to encompass the full display: #1, #2. "I don't know the names of all the optics in the photos, but they were fantastic."

Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley identifies them for us: "This truly beautiful display has everything. A lunar parhelic circle courses through the moon and its dog companions. There is a 22 degree halo topped by an upper tangent arc. Higher still there is a rare lunar circumzenithal arc and something seen even less often: a lunar supralateral arc." For a quick-look summary, click here.

"In one of the photos, there is a hole in the snow," notes Gudmundsson. "It is a snowhouse where my son Atli age 12 slept this amazing night!" Can you find it?