The Big Corona
Image Credit & Copyright:
Alson Wong
Most photographs don't adequately portray the magnificence of the
Sun's corona.
Seeing the
corona first-hand during a total
solar eclipse is
unparalleled.
The
human eye
can adapt to see coronal
features and
extent that average cameras usually cannot.
Welcome, however, to the
digital age.
The featured picture is a combination of forty exposures from one thousandth of a second to two seconds that, together, were
digitally combined and processed
to highlight faint features of the
total solar eclipse that occurred in
August of 2017.
Clearly visible are
intricate layers and glowing caustics of an ever changing mixture of hot gas and
magnetic fields in the Sun's corona.
Looping prominences appear bright pink just past the Sun's
limb.
Faint details on the night side of the
New Moon can even be made out,
illuminated by sunlight reflected from the dayside of the
Full Earth.