marc-pdx Posted February 10, 2023 Share Posted February 10, 2023 I've been looking at the structures you can see around the sun's perimeter and keep seeing these relatively darker structures. Can someone tell me what this structure is? And is it the same thing as the "tornado-looking" (thinner) structures you can see at other locations around the perimeter on most days (southeast wing today, for example)? Sorry if this is inappropriate for this topic. I wasn't sure where to post it. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildWill Posted February 10, 2023 Share Posted February 10, 2023 (edited) 40 minutes ago, marc-pdx said: I've been looking at the structures you can see around the sun's perimeter and keep seeing these relatively darker structures. Can someone tell me what this structure is? And is it the same thing as the "tornado-looking" (thinner) structures you can see at other locations around the perimeter on most days (southeast wing today, for example)? Sorry if this is inappropriate for this topic. I wasn't sure where to post it. Thanks! Howdy, Can you tell me where/when you got this image and do you recall the wavelength? It looks like 171A to me, but I’d rather be sure… If I was gonna make a wild guess, I would say it is nothing - as in the absence of something. Some thinning of plasma inside of that loop surrounding it. It also kinda looks like several coronal loops as seen from the side, so it’s alignment is parallel to the equator. The other possibility that comes to mind is that it’s an artifact from the imaging system and processing of the image. @3gMike worked on the CCDs in SDO. They’ve been up there imaging every 10 seconds (2 seconds for 171A & 211A) for 13 years. So, it’s quite possibly an artifact of the imaging process… I think Mike will weigh in here shortly and shed some light on that possibility. It would also be helpful to see a couple more examples… Cheers! Will Edited February 10, 2023 by WildWill 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc-pdx Posted February 10, 2023 Author Share Posted February 10, 2023 Thanks Wild Will! I took that screen clipping from the spaceweatherlive.com/en/solar-activity.html site - from the Coronal Holes image on Feb 8, 2023 (two days ago). It looks like this is 193A if I'm interpreting the label at the bottom of the pic. Below, I'm including today's Coronal Holes pic of the same location and the same structure (2 days later than my original pic), which is somewhat smaller now. I always look around the sun's perimeter in these pics and see similar, but usually much thinner looking, structures. Sometimes they look like tornadoes in shape but I can't tell if they are truly rotating or just look similar to that. Thanks for looking at this!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arjemma Posted February 10, 2023 Share Posted February 10, 2023 44 minutes ago, marc-pdx said: Thanks Wild Will! I took that screen clipping from the spaceweatherlive.com/en/solar-activity.html site - from the Coronal Holes image on Feb 8, 2023 (two days ago). It looks like this is 193A if I'm interpreting the label at the bottom of the pic. Below, I'm including today's Coronal Holes pic of the same location and the same structure (2 days later than my original pic), which is somewhat smaller now. I always look around the sun's perimeter in these pics and see similar, but usually much thinner looking, structures. Sometimes they look like tornadoes in shape but I can't tell if they are truly rotating or just look similar to that. Thanks for looking at this!! That looks a bit like a prominence. On AIA 193 prominences and filaments are usually in a darker color than the more active parts of the sun. These are areas with lower radiation (like prominences, filaments and coronal holes). So I think this might be a prominence hanging above or beside an active region. I'm not 100% sure though but that's my thought on this. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solution Calder Posted February 10, 2023 Solution Share Posted February 10, 2023 1 hour ago, marc-pdx said: I've been looking at the structures you can see around the sun's perimeter and keep seeing these relatively darker structures. Can someone tell me what this structure is? And is it the same thing as the "tornado-looking" (thinner) structures you can see at other locations around the perimeter on most days (southeast wing today, for example)? Sorry if this is inappropriate for this topic. I wasn't sure where to post it. Thanks! This is a prominence, @arjemma you are correct. The tornado looking things are also prominences. Here’s an interesting article that I was reading about those tornado like vortices. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/785/1/L2/pdf 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc-pdx Posted February 10, 2023 Author Share Posted February 10, 2023 40 minutes ago, Calder said: This is a prominence, @arjemma you are correct. The tornado looking things are also prominences. Here’s an interesting article that I was reading about those tornado like vortices. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/785/1/L2/pdf Thanks Calder! The PDF is really helpful. And I kept puzzling over these... now my brain can rest. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Scott McIntosh Posted February 10, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted February 10, 2023 Prominence in absorption. If you look in Halpha and or 304Å you’ll likely see something bright there…. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildWill Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 (edited) Prominence (filament) was the first thing that came to mind for me as well. But it’s not there in H-a (6562.8A) or He II (304A). Also, going back, I see the same “feature in a number of images going back into January. I’ve collected a couple that I’ll mark up and post later, when I have a bit more time… That is why I suggested the possibility of an artifact. It doesn’t appear in the images (171A) when there is something “covering or blocking”. I don’t know enough about the CCDs that are on SDO to know if it’s burned in or something like that. Here is one of the images, from Jan 25… Here is an H-a image I took with my cell phone yesterday, lol… shaking hands and everything! This image is mirrored along a vertical line at the center and rotated by about 10*, clockwise, so you are looking at the East limb. The feature would be in between the two prominences in the northern hemisphere. the one to the south had a pretty Sweet filament eruption yesterday. You can see a piece of charged plasma heading away. There was another eruption on the northernmost prominence in this image as well! That was my thinking anyway. BTW, there was a beautiful “double twister” at the North Pole yesterday… It almost looks like someone giving a peace sign… or a rabbit sticking his head up… but I digress. Edited February 11, 2023 by WildWill 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc-pdx Posted February 11, 2023 Author Share Posted February 11, 2023 9 minutes ago, WildWill said: Prominence (filament) was the first thing that came to mind for me as well. But it’s not there in H-a (6562.8A) or He II (304A). Also, going back, I see the same “feature in a number of images going back into January. I’ve collected a couple that I’ll mark up and post later, when I have a bit more time… That is why I suggested the possibility of an artifact. It doesn’t appear in the images (171A) when there is something “covering or blocking”. I don’t know enough about the CCDs that are on SDO to know if it’s burned in or something like that. Here is one of the images, from Jan 25… Here is an H-a image I took with my cell phone yesterday, lol… shaking hands and everything! This image is mirrored along a vertical line at the center and rotated by about 10*, clockwise, so you are looking at the East limb. The feature would be in between the two prominences in the northern hemisphere. the one to the south had a pretty Sweet filament eruption yesterday. You can see a piece of charged plasma heading away. There was another eruption on the northernmost prominence in this image as well! That was my thinking anyway. BTW, there was a beautiful “double twister” at the North Pole yesterday… It almost looks like someone giving a peace sign… or a rabbit sticking his head up… but I digress. Great pictures, Will!! You did that one with your cell phone? How? (Sorry... maybe off topic for this discussion section.) You mentioned you saw some of those possible artifacts going back to Jan. 25 at this same location. I had seen them for a number of days there as well - but didn't start noticing until about a week ago, so not as far back as you have found them. But when you said that I realized that the sun would have rotated quite a bit since Jan. 25, so if it's not an artifact why would it still be roughly in the same place now as then? So, this may be what's going on - an artifact. As for the filament(s) at the North Pole - that's the one I was thinking of when I mentioned structures that looked like tornadoes earlier today. I didn't see this double "ears" but it's at the same location as I noticed the "tornado" for several days in a row - seems to have disappeared as of today, based on the picture on the Solar-Activity page here (where I took all the pictures and made all the observations I have mentioned today). Since that's at a pole it does make sense that it's not moving across the face, unlike the structure I started talking about, above, on the northeast limb. This artifact/structure is very interesting since it's a mystery to me. The "tornado" is as well (and there are other similar structures at different locations on a lot of occasions over the past couple of weeks at least). I haven't read the entire PDF that Calder posted earlier (had to go out and trim some bushes - LOL!) but I read enough to see that these tornadic features rotate at ~5km/sec. If I have my math right, that's over 11,000 mph. That's a helluva tornado. Not to mention that it's roughly the height of the earth's diameter and hotter than... Phoenix! That's impressive!! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildWill Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 19 minutes ago, marc-pdx said: Great pictures, Will!! You did that one with your cell phone? How? (Sorry... maybe off topic for this discussion section.) You mentioned you saw some of those possible artifacts going back to Jan. 25 at this same location. I had seen them for a number of days there as well - but didn't start noticing until about a week ago, so not as far back as you have found them. But when you said that I realized that the sun would have rotated quite a bit since Jan. 25, so if it's not an artifact why would it still be roughly in the same place now as then? So, this may be what's going on - an artifact. As for the filament(s) at the North Pole - that's the one I was thinking of when I mentioned structures that looked like tornadoes earlier today. I didn't see this double "ears" but it's at the same location as I noticed the "tornado" for several days in a row - seems to have disappeared as of today, based on the picture on the Solar-Activity page here (where I took all the pictures and made all the observations I have mentioned today). Since that's at a pole it does make sense that it's not moving across the face, unlike the structure I started talking about, above, on the northeast limb. This artifact/structure is very interesting since it's a mystery to me. The "tornado" is as well (and there are other similar structures at different locations on a lot of occasions over the past couple of weeks at least). I haven't read the entire PDF that Calder posted earlier (had to go out and trim some bushes - LOL!) but I read enough to see that these tornadic features rotate at ~5km/sec. If I have my math right, that's over 11,000 mph. That's a helluva tornado. Not to mention that it's roughly the height of the earth's diameter and hotter than... Phoenix! That's impressive!! Thanks! I literally held my cell phone over the eyepiece, adjusted the height for the eye relief of the eyepiece and took the pics. I probably took about 30 or 40 and about 6 or 7 came out ok. I have some other where you can see filaments and other features, but still not that great… I do have 3 nice cameras, but where I’m set up right now, I don’t really have a place for a laptop. Two of them are 35mm - one SLR, one DSLR. I also have the 183m c pro. There are two reasons I haven’t rally dove into photography of the sun… First, every pic I take will be so cool, I’ll wanna share with all my friends - and I’d really like to keep the ones I have…. And I won’t if I’m sending pic every time we have a sunny day… The other reason is that I really like using my Mk 1 Mod 1 (cateract surgery) good lord issued eyeball! I can stare and draw in my notebook for hours. My notebook is the first place I went… Try not to laugh too hard… you can tell from my writing that my hand was shaking a lot yesterday(pain). I feel lucky I got any decent pics! Looking through the eyepiece also “takes me away!” I’ve a nice set of 2” eyepieces along with a set of plossels. I usually just use the plossels with the H-a - too much weight. I’ll PM ya a pic of my setup… I will have the 183mc pro set up in a couple of months. I’ve got to get a pad built for the telescope in a spot where I can run USB from the camera through the wall and into my house…. I’ve got it picked out, I just have to get ‘er done! Gig’em! Will 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildWill Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 This was from Jan 18… Regarding tornadoes on the limbs… https://www.space.com/40273-huge-solar-tornadoes-dont-actually-spin.html I’ve seen a couple of papers suggesting that they don’t rotate, even if it looks like a tornado… this sounds like a new topic… As fer speeds, check out the solar winds right now… lol. Then do the math! Cheers! Will 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3gMike Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 15 hours ago, WildWill said: The other possibility that comes to mind is that it’s an artifact from the imaging system and processing of the image. @3gMike worked on the CCDs in SDO. They’ve been up there imaging every 10 seconds (2 seconds for 171A & 211A) for 13 years. So, it’s quite possibly an artifact of the imaging process… I think Mike will weigh in here shortly and shed some light on that possibility. Hi, This does not look like a CCD issue to me. Exposure to radiation can cause 'traps' which cause individual pixels to hold on to charge, but that does not explain what is seen here. Of course there is a lot of other stuff in the optical plane of the camera that could also contribute to an artefact. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calder Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 12 hours ago, WildWill said: Prominence (filament) was the first thing that came to mind for me as well. But it’s not there in H-a (6562.8A) or He II (304A). Also, going back, I see the same “feature in a number of images going back into January. I’ve collected a couple that I’ll mark up and post later, when I have a bit more time… That is why I suggested the possibility of an artifact. It doesn’t appear in the images (171A) when there is something “covering or blocking”. I don’t know enough about the CCDs that are on SDO to know if it’s burned in or something like that. Here is one of the images, from Jan 25… Here is an H-a image I took with my cell phone yesterday, lol… shaking hands and everything! This image is mirrored along a vertical line at the center and rotated by about 10*, clockwise, so you are looking at the East limb. The feature would be in between the two prominences in the northern hemisphere. the one to the south had a pretty Sweet filament eruption yesterday. You can see a piece of charged plasma heading away. There was another eruption on the northernmost prominence in this image as well! That was my thinking anyway. BTW, there was a beautiful “double twister” at the North Pole yesterday… It almost looks like someone giving a peace sign… or a rabbit sticking his head up… but I digress. Watch the 48 hour loops and you will see that it is a prominence/filament in absorption as Scott said. The one on January 25 was also likely a prominence. 10 hours ago, WildWill said: This was from Jan 18… Regarding tornadoes on the limbs… https://www.space.com/40273-huge-solar-tornadoes-dont-actually-spin.html I’ve seen a couple of papers suggesting that they don’t rotate, even if it looks like a tornado… this sounds like a new topic… As fer speeds, check out the solar winds right now… lol. Then do the math! Cheers! Will Yup! Even the article I shared talks about how they may not actually be spinning. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaZed24 Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 15 hours ago, WildWill said: Prominence (filament) was the first thing that came to mind for me as well. But it’s not there in H-a (6562.8A) or He II (304A). Also, going back, I see the same “feature in a number of images going back into January. I’ve collected a couple that I’ll mark up and post later, when I have a bit more time… That is why I suggested the possibility of an artifact. It doesn’t appear in the images (171A) when there is something “covering or blocking”. I don’t know enough about the CCDs that are on SDO to know if it’s burned in or something like that. Here is one of the images, from Jan 25… Here is an H-a image I took with my cell phone yesterday, lol… shaking hands and everything! This image is mirrored along a vertical line at the center and rotated by about 10*, clockwise, so you are looking at the East limb. The feature would be in between the two prominences in the northern hemisphere. the one to the south had a pretty Sweet filament eruption yesterday. You can see a piece of charged plasma heading away. There was another eruption on the northernmost prominence in this image as well! That was my thinking anyway. BTW, there was a beautiful “double twister” at the North Pole yesterday… It almost looks like someone giving a peace sign… or a rabbit sticking his head up… but I digress. I read about this in a couple of articles. Seems like this prominence appears regularly at the solar north pole with a couple of years between it's appearance. I'll post a link to an article here: https://www.space.com/vortex-sun-poles There's a video of it, too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildWill Posted February 15, 2023 Share Posted February 15, 2023 On 2/11/2023 at 5:18 AM, 3gMike said: Hi, This does not look like a CCD issue to me. Exposure to radiation can cause 'traps' which cause individual pixels to hold on to charge, but that does not explain what is seen here. Of course there is a lot of other stuff in the optical plane of the camera that could also contribute to an artefact. Howdy, Thanks for weighing in on this. To me it kinda looked like there possibly could be some "burn-in" on the sensor there . . I am pleased you don't think it an artifact - speaks well for he future of the imaging system. I like them a lot! Thank ya! Have ya a great night! Will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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