Click here to enlarge

image credit & copyright: Miloslav Druckmüller (Brno U. of Tech.), Martin Dietzel, Peter Aniol, Vojtech Rušin



only in the fleeting darkness of a total solar eclipse is the light of the solar corona easily visible

normally overwhelmed by the bright solar disk, the expansive corona, the sun's outer atmosphere, is an alluring sight

but the subtle details and extreme ranges in the corona's brightness, although discernible to the eye, are notoriously difficult to photograph

pictured here, however, using multiple images and digital processing, is a detailed image of the Sun's corona taken during the 2008 august total solar eclipse from Mongolia

clearly visible are intricate layers and glowing caustics of an ever changing mixture of hot gas and magnetic fields

bright looping prominences appear pink just above the Sun's limb


























in apod.nasa.gov/apod