An older Daystar H-alpha filter shows the objective filter (right) and the unit housing the etalon and blocking filters. They're even better than eclipses in one respect - not only are prominences visible, but so too are a host of other phenomena hidden for ages from human sight. You either have to chase down a total eclipse to view them, or more conveniently, get a hold of a hydrogen alpha filter.īy selectively "slicing and dicing" all the other colors from sunlight until you're left with only a razor-thin slice of red light, H-alpha filters essentially create an artificial eclipse any sunny day of the year. The prominences, like other features visible in H-alpha light, are always there but completely swamped by photospheric glare. "Chromo" means color and refers to the picturesque red flames or prominences seen around the limb of the Sun when its overly-brilliant photosphere is covered up by the Moon in a total solar eclipse. The process occurs with great efficiency in the 1,250-mile-thick layer of solar atmosphere located just above the photosphere called the chromosphere. Here, the temperature rises from about 11,000☏ to 36,000☏, hot enough to excite hydrogen to emit its singular red light. The Sun's crimson-hued chromosphere and prominences were captured during the November 2013 total solar eclipse from Pokwero Village, Uganda. When they cascade back to their original orbits, they release that energy as crimson light with a wavelength of 6562.8Å (656 nm). H-alpha light is emitted by hydrogen atoms, by far the most common element in the Sun, when electrons within those atoms absorb energy and rise to a higher energy level or orbit. In the red of hydrogen light, we peer into the solar chromosphere, the layer directly above the photosphere. Composite image showing the Sun in white light (right) and in H-alpha. Ever since that time, I've seen the Sun not so much as a sunny companion but as a star to be reckoned with. Ribbons of gas grew to a fiery brightness - brighter than anything else on the Sun - right before my eyes. I'll never forget my first view of a flare through a 0.7Å (angstrom) Daystar H-alpha filter. Unlike the more sedate white light view, H-alpha pulls back the curtain to expose the beast for what it is: a ferocious, unpredictable ball of incandescent hydrogen gas. Prominences, spicules, fibrils, Ellerman bombs, flares and more seethe and boil before your eyes. Viewed in a narrow slice of the spectrum centered in the ruby-red H-alpha line, the Sun throbs with activity.
But if it's real-time excitement you're looking for, nothing matches the view through an H-alpha (Hα) filter. White light filters provide a simple and inexpensive way to get to know the Sun they allow us to see day-to-day and week-to-week changes in photospheric activity. Cutaway of the Sun showing its core, where nuclear fusion occurs, radiative zone, convection zone and the three layers of its atmosphere: photosphere, chromosphere and corona. White light filters reveal the glaring face of the Sun called the photosphere, home to granulation, a rice-grain texture of rising and sinking convective cells faculae, bright patches of concentrated magnetic energy and sunspot groups that come and go as the rotating Sun carries them in and out of view. So protected, we can study the nearest star in either white light or choose among several narrow wavelengths, the most common of which are red hydrogen-alpha and violet calcium K-line light. The Sun radiates abundant light, so much so that to view it safely we must use filters that allow only a fraction of a percent of that light into our eyes.
I feel its heat on my cheek and in my mind follow the radiation back to its source 93 million miles away, a star so bright it hurts my eyes to look at it.
#The alpha band spark in the dark portable
uses a portable Coronado Solar Max 60 telescope designed for viewing the Sun in hydrogen alpha light.Ī chill autumn morning, but the Sun is out. No less than five drummers were used on the recording, including guest Ringo Starr.Want to see a star rock in real time? Observe the Sun in the crimson light of hydrogen alpha (h-alpha), and watch it come alive. The core band members remained T-Bone Burnett, Steven Soles and David Mansfield.
Spark in the Dark is the second album by the rock band The Alpha Band, released in 1977.
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