View Astronomy Picture of the Day Archives
Nov 8, 2013
Image Credit & Copyright: Jaime Vilinga - collaboration / Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit & Copyright: Jaime Vilinga - collaboration / Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
The Sun's disk was totally
eclipsed
for a brief 20 seconds as the Moon's
dark umbral shadow raced across
Pokwero in northwestern Uganda
on November 3rd.
So this sharp telescopic view of totality in clear skies
from the central African locale was much sought after by
eclipse watchers.
In the inspiring celestial scene the Moon just covers
the overwhelmingly bright
photosphere, the lower, normally
visible layer of the Sun's atmosphere.
Extending beyond the photosphere, the reddish hydrogen alpha glow
of the solar chromosphere outlines the
lunar silhouette, fading into the Sun's tenuous, hot, outer atmosphere or
corona.
Planet-sized prominences
reaching beyond the limb of the
active Sun adorn
the edges of the silhouette, including a cloud of glowing
plasma separated from the chromosphere near the 1 o'clock position.
