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Catching a Solar Flare


 

Object:

Catching a Solar Flare

 

Date & Site:

Imaged on 10/08/2015; Runningman Observatory, Carlsbad, CA

Conditions: clear

Equipment:

Telescope: Lunt 80mm Pressure-Tuned Refractor equipped a Hydrogen Alpha (0.7A bandwidth) bandpass filter and 18mm blocking filter

Mount: Losmandy G-11 Gemini
Camera: Point Grey Grasshopper CMOS USB3 video camera attached to a Televue Powermate 2.5x Barlow

Notes:

Exposures: 42 frames/second for 1000 frames. Processed by selecting the best 20% frames; stacked and filtered using wavelett functions.

This interesting solar prominence developed early in the morning on October 8th, 2015. While returning from a short break from a sequence of video captures, I noticed an unusual flare rising in the middle of this arching prominence. The above images show the before (9:40 PT) and after (10:40 PT) emergence of this flare. Time-stamped images from NSO show this flare developing at 17:15 UT and dissipating at 18:15 UT, as seen in the video clip below.

Click here to see a NSO/GONG video of the flare as captured from the Solar Observatory at Big Bear Mountain, CA

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