See amazing new sun images from NJIT’s Big Bear Solar Observatory
Caption: The most detailed sunspot ever obtained in visible light was seen by new telescope at NJIT’s Big Bear Solar Observatory.
Credit: Big Bear Solar Observatory
NJIT Distinguished Professor Philip R. Goode and the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) team have achieved “first light” using a deformable mirror in what is called adaptive optics at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). Using this equipment, an image of a sunspot was published yesterday on the website of Ciel et l’Espace, as the photo of the day: http://www.cieletespace.fr/node/5752
“This photo of a sunspot is now the most detailed ever obtained in visible light,” according to Ciel et l’Espace. In September, the publication, a popular astronomy magazine, will publish several more photos of the Sun taken with BBSO’s new adaptive optics system.
Goode said that the images were achieved with the 1.6 m clear aperture, off-axis New Solar Telescope (NST) at BBSO. The telescope has a resolution covering about 50 miles on the Sun’s surface.
The telescope is the crown jewel of BBSO, the first facility-class solar observatory built in more than a generation in the U.S. The instrument is undergoing commissioning at BBSO.
Since 1997, under Goode’s direction, NJIT has owned and operated BBSO, located in a clear mountain lake. The mountain lake is characterized by sustained atmospheric stability, which is essential for BBSO’s primary interests of measuring and understanding solar complex phenomena utilizing dedicated telescopes and instruments.
The images were taken by the NST with atmospheric distortion corrected by its 97 actuator deformable mirror. By the summer of 2011, in collaboration with the National Solar Observatory, BBSO will have upgraded the current adaptive optics system to one utilizing a 349 actuator deformable mirror.
With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Air Force Office of Scientific Research, NASA and NJIT, the NST began operation in the summer of 2009. Additional support from NSF was received a few months ago to fund further upgrades to this new optical system.
The NST will be the pathfinder for an even larger ground-based telescope, the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST), to be built over the next decade. NJIT is an ATST co-principal investigator on this NSF project. The new grant will allow Goode and partners from the National Solar Observatory (NSO) to develop a new and more sophisticated kind of adaptive optics, known as multi-conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO).
The new optical system will allow the researchers to increase the distortion-free field of view to allow for better ways to study these larger and puzzling areas of the Sun. MCAO on the NST will be a pathfinder for the optical system of NSO’s 4-meter aperture ATST coming later in the decade.
Scientists believe magnetic structures, like sunspots hold an important key to understanding space weather. Space weather, which originates in the Sun, can have dire consequences on Earth’s climate and environment. A bad storm can disrupt power grids and communication, destroy satellites and even expose airline pilots, crew and passengers to radiation.
The new telescope now feeds a high-order adaptive optics system, which in turn feeds the next generation of technologies for measuring magnetic fields and dynamic events using visible and infrared light. A parallel computer system for real-time image enhancement highlights it.
Goode and BBSO scientists have studied solar magnetic fields for many years. They are expert at combining BBSO ground-based data with satellite data to determine dynamic properties of the solar magnetic fields.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
the marginal “early warning” benefit from placing such observatories closer to the Sun than Earth orbit, that is…
Hmmm…. exactly how do the warnings get to Earth faster than light?
This will need distortion free brains to interpret its images 🙂
This example answers the question of AO being able to boost resolution, but it does not tell much about detection.
I’m sure if you put AO in front of projection you would increase resolution and detection limits.
The link with the past is beyond salvation, at this point, without an exhuastive calibration run in parallel.
Without such calibrations being performed, and out in the open, I must assume that the link (K factor) with the past is opaque.
Finally I can see what a black hole looks like 🙂
Looks like one of Van Gogh’s “sunflowers” to me.
Will they now be able to spot Mr Cameron out there at all, or is he to far gone already?
That is great.
NJIT huh ? Good work.
“And last: A technical question – What sunspot is this?”
I believe from the other image linked that it would be “THE” sunspot, at the moment.
Space weather, which originates in the Sun, can have dire consequences on Earth’s climate and environment. A bad storm can disrupt power grids and communication, destroy satellites and even expose airline pilots, crew and passengers to radiation.
but not afffect the climate, according to AGW theory.
Even though we keep finding more and more previously unconsidered aspects of how the sun functions but consider that the ‘science is settled’ as far as climate is concerned.
Since 1997, under Goode’s direction, NJIT has owned and operated BBSO, located in a clear mountain lake. The mountain lake is characterized by sustained atmospheric stability, which is essential for BBSO’s primary interests of measuring and understanding solar complex phenomena utilizing dedicated telescopes and instruments.
I wonder: Are there any weather instruments there, and if so, are there records available (raw data) which might be perused?
I’d like to see a comparison to the various other places nearby, especially UHI susceptible locations.
Anthony – thank you very much!!!
PaddicJ: I believe the 50 mile resolution is the width of each pixel.
Using the 3D Sun app on my iPhone I can see dark areas in one wavelength are bright in another, so the dark (visible light) center may be quite bright in other wavelengths. While I can’t say that the ‘shadows’ that give a 3D appearance on the sun’s surface are really shadows, I gather they are less bright due to the curvature of the terrain emitting the light toward the telescope – so the 3D look is real.
Sauron lives….on the sun
Sorry yanks, this has been done for years:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=swedish+solar+telesvc&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images#hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=swedish+solar+telescope&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=swedish+solar+telescope&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=7db4f7af4a13aa89
50 miles = 80 km
70 km = 43 miles
By the way, the VLT is the best telescope ever.
http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/vlt.html
Gary Pearse says:
August 25, 2010 at 12:46 pm:
“What possible explanation is there for the vermiform radial structures in a plasma? Shouldn’t all the matter at those temperatures be unorganized. It looks like very palpable units of mass.”
The radial structures look just like Mrs Smokey’s middle school science experiment using iron filings on a magnet with a thin sheet of plexiglas between them.
@ur momisugly AJ Abrams says:
August 25, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Someone is going to say it, so I might as well. That looks exactly like an [snip].
[Let someone else say it. ~dbs, mod.]
I’m someone else, and it DOES look just like one of those!
Something wrongish happened to that overlong URL, should be:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=swedish+solar+telescope&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images
This may not ‘amuse’ Dr. Svalgaard, but it is all in the interest of ‘science’. Using data from his file
http://www.leif.org/research/spolar.txt
for the sector magnetic field polarity, advancing by 3 days to synchronise it with the sun’s rotation, plotting the days of negative polarity against the solar longitude got an interesting coincidence with previously mentioned sun’s bump or as NASA would have it :
THE SUN’S MAGNETIC FIELD HAS A GOOD MEMORY- Some deep internal structure in the sun must ultimately be responsible for these long-lived longitudinal effects, which appear to rotate rigidly with the sun.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC13.htm
Smokey says:
August 25, 2010 at 2:34 pm
“What possible explanation is there for the vermiform radial structures in a plasma? Shouldn’t all the matter at those temperatures be unorganized. It looks like very palpable units of mass.”
The radial structures look just like Mrs Smokey’s middle school science experiment using iron filings on a magnet with a thin sheet of plexiglas between them.
The magnetic field is indeed the great ‘structurer’ here.
The Astronomers Who Stare at Goats!
So.. I kinda get the flux lines around the hole, but what makes the pebble texture? They’re impressively large features that don’t seem to be getting distorted much by the spot.
Stunning. The structure around the spot is just as interesting I think…
There is a website suggesting that the sun interior is dark matter and the sunspots are meteor (or asteroid) hits. Hmmm ?!
Look long enough and you can see stars inside that black hole.
Stephen Brown said on August 25, 2010 at 2:38 pm:
It certainly does, however I have found it’s best to just to peel the orange anyway to be sure, the fruit under the spot often is still good.
… arse
There… done.
Most excellent.
Imagine that, science being done with actual observation. What? Not going the route of computer models? Blasphemy!
(I know, I know, they probably use models, but only as a tool to aid their eyes, not replace them!)
There’s something about that image that inexplicably makes my skin crawl.
steveta_uk said on August 25, 2010 at 1:47 pm:
They don’t, however the theory is that by being closer to the Sun and keeping it under continual surveillance we can better detect when solar flares and other disruptive solar events are about to happen, thus get at least a few minutes of warning.
However we have now learned that by simply monitoring the decay rate of manganese-54 we could get perhaps a day and a half of warning of solar flares, no observatory needed.
See, told you it was marginal.