Remarkable Explosion on the Sun
After three years of weak activity, the Sun is back in action and well on its way to the next solar maximum, predicted for early 2013. And this time, we have better views than ever before.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), launched in February 2010, is providing more detailed and rapid-fire movies of solar events than we've yet seen. These, along with views from STEREO and the venerable Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), are bound to keep us riveted in the coming years.
Fortunately, these spacecraft were ready and waiting earlier today, when they captured a spectacular prominence erupting into space and falling back onto the solar surface. The spacecraft observed the flare's peak at 2:41 a.m. Eastern time (06:41 UTC). SDO's AIA instrument recorded images at the extreme-ultraviolet wavelengths of 171, 211, and 304 angstroms. These were followed by wider frames from the LASCO C2 white-light coronagraph on SOHO.
The SDO's extreme-ultraviolet images show that this huge eruption involves relatively cool gas. It is somewhat unique because at many places in the eruption there seems to be even cooler material — at temperatures less than 140,000°F (80,000 K).
NASA's announcement this afternoon noted that the eruption involved an M2 (medium-sized) solar flare, an S1-class (minor) radiation storm, and a spectacular coronal mass ejection (CME) from sunspot complex 1226-1227. After ballooning high above the Sun, the large cloud of matter rained back down onto an area covering almost half the solar disk.
The CME should deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field
during the late hours of June 8th or 9th. High-latitude skywatchers should be alert for auroras when the CME arrives.
This video was put together by The Sun Today and Helioviewer.org.
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by Randy Halverson:
During the month of May, I shot Milky Way timelapse in central South Dakota, when I had the time, and the weather cooperated. The biggest challenge was cloudy nights and the wind. There were very few nights, when I could shoot, that were perfectly clear, and often the wind was blowing 25mph +. That made it hard to get the shots I wanted. I kept most of the shots low to the ground, so the wind wouldn't catch the setup and cause camera shake, or blow it over. I used a Stage Zero Dolly on the dolly shots and a "Milapse" mount on the panning ones.
Canon 60D and T2i
Tokina 11-16
Sigma 20mm F1.8
Tamron 17-50
Dynamic Perception Stage Zero Dolly dynamicperception.com
Shot in RAW format, the Milky Way shots were 30 seconds exposure F2.8 or F1.8 with 2 second interval between shots, for 3-4 hours run time. ISO 1600
Ten seconds of the video is about 2 hours 20 minutes in real time.
Simon Wilkinson from thebluemask.com created the soundtrack "Exodus" for the video
More about Exodus on his site. thebluemask.com/blog/2011/06/new-time-lapse-video-featuring-my-music-exodus/
Wired.com article wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/milky-way-video/
Bad Astronomer article blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/03/gorgeous-milky-way-time-lapse/