Incredible View of an Active Region on the Sun

By Nancy Atkinson - August 9, 2012 at 2:46 PM UTC | Solar Astronomy
active-region-1542.jpg

Wow! What a view of Active Region 1542 on the Sun! César Cantú from the

Chilidog Observatory

in Monterrey, Mexico says this is "another way" of looking at the active region.

"It is an inverted image," César said via email, which means it is essentially a negative which is then processed. "The process was done with software: Registax, PhotoshopCS5 and PixInsight," he said.

César took this image on August 8, 2012. Note the incredible detail of the Sun's swirling surface, the black bottomless pit of a sunspot, a tornadic-like prominence on the right and other wisps of solar material just above the surface.

He used a Meade 10 inch SC, with Coronado 90 mm and BF30 filters, along with a DMK31 camera. "The focal length is 2500 mm and correlated with the camera, approximately 210 X," César said.

See the original at

his website

.

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Image caption: Active Region 1542 on August 8, 2012. Credit: César Cantú. Used by permission.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com