Amazing: Most Detailed Picture Of Sunspot Ever

This is really an incredible picture, and I'm drooling just by thinking of lots more pictures like this will emerge from this observatory. Enjoy!

Researchers at Big Bear Solar Observatory have tuned their adaptive optics array and achieved first light, capturing this image of a sunspot that is now the most detailed ever captured in visible light. The image was captured with Big Bear’s New Solar Telescope (NST), a brand new instrument (as the name implies) with a resolution of just 50 miles on the sun’s surface.

The NST is the precursor to an even-larger telescope, the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST), which will be constructed over the next decade, allowing Big Bear researchers to build a new kind of adaptive optics system known as multi-conjugate adaptive optics, that should provide them with a clear, distortion-free means of observing the sun from Earth in unrivaled detail.

In the meantime, NST will collect incredibly detailed images of solar phenomena like this that should help researchers understand the complexities of solar weather and its impact on the space climate in our neighborhood of the solar system.

Source: Big Bear Solar Observatory Snaps the Most Detailed Pic of a Sunspot Ever

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/cc4cf69f501d.jpg[/atsimg]

[edit on 25/8/10 by Droogie]

....Hey....isn't that just a close up of George Hamilton's left nipple?


Really though, awesome picture. Hope lots more come!

Ewww...Looks like a...Well, you know what it looks like

Might also look like a lidless eye, constantly observing earth from a vast distance.

Keep in mind that this picture was captured in visible light, so I guess this is what the sun would look like if you caught a glimpse of it from not too far away. Maybe someone knowledgable can explain how taking the pictures works, and how the processing is like.

[edit on 25/8/10 by Droogie]

Originally posted by ATLien
Ewww...Looks like a...Well, you know what it looks like

An orange peel with a bullet hole in it? that's my thought, but I can probably guess what you were thinking.

Nice detail but I was expecting something a little better than 50 miles, I guess we'll have to wait 10 years for the next telescope to see that.

It looks like an eye.

Reminds me of the eye in Lord of the Rings.

Really cool looking picture. Thanks!

If you like that, then check out these images:

www.boston.com...

reply to post by Aggie Man


Those pics are insane! I just posted that link to my FB lol.

I could stare at the rotating one for hours.

For some reason I think of a sunflower when I see this

reply to post by Aggie Man


Aggie Man

The older I have got, the more interested in the Sun I've become.

Looking at those pictures you linked too are incredible i think...!

I get a definite warm feeling from them (Not because the Sun is a mass of heat etc etc), it kind of provides comfort !?

Thank-you for those pics

Regards

PurpleDOG UK

reply to post by Aggie Man


Thanks for sharing those! I saw there was already a thread on those when making this one. Those are some astonishing pictures indeed

its the all-seeing eye.

Originally posted by GoodFella
It looks like an eye.

The Eye of Ra

reply to post by Aggie Man


Great link Aggie Man ,But somewhat disturbing comments left on that page

wow, that picture is the cat's a$$!













oh wait, no, its the sun

reply to post by Aggie Man


Way cool pictures thanks!!

Nature never disappoints when it comes to beauty.

Really cool find! that picture is eerie and beautiful at the same time.

But definitely some very weird comments on that Boston.com link posted earlier. Like...really weird.

its a yellow va-jay-jay!
line 2

reply to post by lasertaglover


Well, the picture certainly ignites some interesting and different associations among the ATS members posting in this thread.

And, now that I've read the comments to the pictures of the other link, they are pretty strange indeed.