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Document URL: http://www.ulo.ucl.ac.uk/news/2006-archive/2006-05-12-solarProm/index.html Leave print version
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Solar prominence on 11 May 2006.

WARNING: Under no circumstances look at the sun through an unfiltered telescope.

On 11 May 2006 Mike Pearson, Technician at the Observatory, set out to record a transit of the Intenational Space Station across the center of the sun. Unfortunately this couldn't be observed, possibly due to a manouvre of the space station earlier in the day.

However, at the same time a massive solar prominence was visible, one of the biggest observed here at ULO.



Huge solar prominence on May 11 2006 Image of a huge solar prominence taken by Mike Pearson at ULO on May 11 2006

The image was taken through a SolarScope Solarview 50 telescope piggybacked on a Meade 7" Maksutov. The camera is a Minitron 12vl (HAD) CCTV video camera.

The footage was recorded on a DVD recorder and then copied to a PC for processing in Registax, combining about 500 frames.

Contrast and brightness adjustment and addition of colour was done in Photoshop.

Finally three false colour images were combined in Astroart.