Solar Photography

There is much activity to see on the Sun with the right equipment. In these images you can see the snake-like structures called filaments, the darker areas called active regions usually surrounding sun spots, and the flares or prominences around the outer edge or limb. As we approach Solar Maximum this activity will continue to increase.

These images were shot on the afternoon of 3-15 from my backyard observatory with 2 different telescope setups. These images are shot with special filters designed for solar imaging. The filters block out all light except a very narrow bandwith of 656.28nm. The first image labelled SolarMax3, is a 30 panel mosaic. Each of the panels is the best 25% of 500 images. I shot a total of 15,000 images. The second image labelled Quark, is a 9 panel mosaic. Each panel is the bet 25% of 1000 images. I shot a total of 9,000 images. All of the images are processed then stitched together to create these images.