Last imaging for a while

This image depicts the northeast quadrant of our Sun, as recorded the morning of March 2, 2026. The data collected were in hydrogen-alpha light and depict well the turbulent curves in the chromosphere resulting from Solar plasma interacting with strong magnetic fields surrounding two sunspots shown here, left to right: Active Regions 4384 and 4381. Several tenuous prominences are found along the rim of the circle. This is a non-colored monochrome image. // James Guilford, Stella-Luna Observatory

It was the last sunny day expected for, likely, a week so we had to get out and image our Sun. Well, we would have done it anyway! Seeing conditions were forecast to be better than average but at midday, when we have our first clear shot at Sun, the atmosphere was stirred up and shaking our view. Still, the miracle of “lucky imaging” came through and we were able to make passable pictures from the image data. Interestingly, the sunspots at Active Regions 4384 and 4381 are the remnants of the giant sunspot formerly known as AR4366 surviving a trip around the far side of our star! Sunspots, by the way, receive new designations when they are first observed appearing over the eastern horizon even if they were previously observed as they disappeared over the western edge.

Both of these images were the result of data stacked in ASI’s VideoStack application. The image above was then processed only in Pixelmator Pro. The image below was processed in PixInsight/Solar Toolbox, and Pixelmator Pro.

An image of our Sun taken in hydrogen-alpha light reveals a turbulent chromosphere, marked with a few dark filaments. Three sunspots are found in the left-hand portion of the disk though difficult to see via hydrogen-alpha. False color has been added to this image. // James Guilford, Stella-Luna Observatory

Leave a comment