Corona from Svalbard
Image Credit &
Copyright:
Miloslav
Druckmüller,
Shadia Habbal,
Peter Aniol,
Pavel Starha
During a total
solar eclipse,
the Sun's
extensive outer atmosphere, or corona, is an inspirational sight.
Streamers and shimmering features
that
engage the eye span a brightness range of over
10,000 to 1, making them notoriously difficult
to capture in a single photograph.
But this composite of 29 telescopic images
covers a wide range of exposure times to reveal
the crown of the
Sun in all its glory.
The aligned and stacked digital frames
were recorded in the cold, clear skies above
the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway during the Sun's
total eclipse on March 20 and also show solar prominences extending
just beyond the edge of the
solar disk.
Remarkably, even small details on the dark night side of the
New Moon can be made out, illuminated by sunlight
reflected from a Full Earth.
Of course, fortunes will be reversed on April 4 as a
Full Moon plunges into the
shadow of a New Earth,
during a total lunar eclipse.