The Sun’s Golden Face

This image shows the Sun’s full disk at the H-alpha wavelength, where the restless, delicate details of the chromosphere become visible. The swirling magnetic structures around sunspots, the filamentary patterns of filaments stretching across the surface, and the brighter patches of active regions all tell the story of the Sun’s constantly changing nature. The image is the result of a high-resolution mosaic: the full solar disk was assembled from several overlapping panels, as a field of view of this size could not be captured in a single exposure.

Kornél Szabó and Dávid Cseh, Lovasberény

Although the weather forecasts did not promise much, luckily the sky finally cleared by Saturday noon at the Csillagtanya. Taking advantage of the opportunity, we put Kornél’s excellent new solar telescope to the test both visually and photographically. After achieving proper focus, the images were captured in three panels with sufficient overlap so that the full solar disk could later be assembled. The clear moments between passing clouds provided particularly good contrast, while the processing and the creation of the final mosaic were carried out by Dávid Cseh.

Revision A is in inverted tone to highlight the prominence, while Revision B is what you actually see in the solar telescope.