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.
Richard Holle says:
August 25, 2010 at 11:18 pm
Ah, of course. Thanks.
Here is the video you wanted, John:
http://www.solarphysics.kva.se/gallery/movies/oslo-2004/movies/gband_20Aug2004_sunspot_41min_color.mpg
John Whitman says:
August 25, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Leif,
What do you think this sun spot would like from the side, viewed along a tangent to the sun’s surface. Assuming you could get the same resolution/definition as this image has.
John
Here’s another APOD that shows this
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070402.html
Ref – Dave Wendt says:
August 26, 2010 at 12:57 am
In a deeper vain, do you have a link that gives a picture/idea of the depth of sunspots like the one you cite; or that show in IR or UV or ? the spot in non-visable light? What we can see in the visable looks mighty deep; black-holeish.
http://www.bbso.njit.edu is the website of the Big Bear Solar Observatory
——————-
Dave Wendt,
Thanks for the link.
John
——————-
John Silver,
Thanks for the link.
John
Dave Wendt says:
August 25, 2010 at 8:24 pm
When I saw you were commenting on the thread I hoped I could get your reaction to this concept. Are you aware of it and do you have any initial reaction.
It is easy to construct theories along this line to explain the expansion. The problem is that there are many other pieces of evidence that are not explainable that way, e.g. the abundances of Helium, Deuterium, and Lithium, the Cosmic Microwave Background, and the positions of the acoustic peaks as function of linear separation, etc.
AJB says:
August 25, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Leif, on your TSI plot at http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
the MF follows a fairly regular ‘saw tooth’ signal to the left. Two questions:
1. What is the origin of the ‘saw tooth’ pattern?
2. The emerging signal to the right is messy but seems to be slowly trying to assume the same shape, possibly reversed.
The MF signal is the average magnetic field of the central half of the solar disk. It goes up and down as the sun is rotating. And matches the field in the solar wind. We have measured this for a long time, e.g. http://wso.stanford.edu/#MeanField
John Whitman says:
August 25, 2010 at 10:41 pm
What do you think this sun spot would like from the side, viewed along a tangent to the sun’s surface. Assuming you could get the same resolution/definition as this image has.
something like this: http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2009/sunspotvisuals.shtml
Roger Carr says:
August 25, 2010 at 10:57 pm
An impressive post, Alexander.
But totally wrong, nevertheless.
Richard Holle says:
August 25, 2010 at 11:18 pm
correlates to the magnetic rotation of the sun, or the 27.32 day pattern of Lunar declinational culminations in phase.
Nothing to do with the Moon.
long time lurker, first time poster…
seeing this image makes me want to go back and rewatch “Sunshine”, one of my favorite “movies-that-no-one’s-ever-heard-of”. If you haven’t seen/heard of it, I’d recommend at least checking out a review or two. It’s an excellent Danny Boyle film.
Anyway…love the site. Keep up the good work.
Pascvaks says:
August 26, 2010 at 5:50 am
Ref – Dave Wendt says:
August 26, 2010 at 12:57 am
In a deeper vain, do you have a link that gives a picture/idea of the depth of sunspots like the one you cite; or that show in IR or UV or ? the spot in non-visable light? What we can see in the visable looks mighty deep; black-holeish.
I don’t have a personal archive, although I do still have , a now faded copy, of the first photo I linked taped to my wall. I found the second with a simple sunspot search of the APOD archive. I highly recommend adding APOD to your bookmark list. The images are almost always fascinating and incredibly beautiful. It is one of the few things NASA has gotten right in the Hansen era. Here are some more images from my search that you may find pertinent.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060710.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060611.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050216.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030624.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021114.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010419.html
This site that Leif linked above also has a lot of good information
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2009/sunspotvisuals.shtml
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 26, 2010 at 10:24 am
Dave Wendt says:
August 25, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Leif, thanks for taking the time to respond. I kind of thought it sounded to good to be true, but I’ve always hoped I’d stick around long enough to see another Kuhnian paradigm shift. The way things are going the lads and lassies need to get a move on.
It is a fact that we do not understand the Sun. So we do not understand stars in general. Yes, we have complicated stories about them that have kept theoreticians happily engaged for centuries. But for so long as they convince themselves that they can ignore the electrical nature of all things in the universe their stories will be fiction. The electric force is the most powerful force in the universe, from which all other forces are derived, and it operates at all levels, from the subatomic to the galactic. When we understand the true electrical nature of our own star we will begin to understand the universe as it really is.
Wal Thornhill
Enneagram says:
August 26, 2010 at 1:48 pm
The electric force is the most powerful force in the universe, from which all other forces are derived
is not even true. for starters it is the second most powerful force, and the other forces are not derived from it. Better educate Mr. Thornhill a bit.
The problem is that there are many other pieces of evidence that are not explainable that way, e.g. the abundances of Helium, Deuterium, and Lithium, the Cosmic Microwave Background, and the positions of the acoustic peaks as function of linear separation, etc.
Incorrect. Read up on Curvature Cosmology before lecturing others, Leif.
Alexander Feht says:
August 26, 2010 at 5:25 pm
“the positions of the acoustic peaks as function of linear separation”
Incorrect. Read up on Curvature Cosmology before lecturing others, Leif.
How about you telling us how Curvature Cosmology accomplishes that?
Leif,
No. You made a critical statement. You prove it.
Sandbox fights are good for children.
Alexander Feht says:
August 26, 2010 at 8:59 pm
No. You made a critical statement. You prove it.
Sandbox fights are good for children.
A text scan of the book http://www.davidcrawford.bigpondhosting.com/index_files/cc2.pdf does not find any references to the predicted abundances of Helium, Deuterium, and Lithium, nor any reference to the acoustic peaks. You said ‘incorrect’, so you show which pages explain this.
On page 12, it says:
“Curvature-cosmologymakes quite specific predictions that can be refuted. […] The galaxies and stars will evolve and eventually all their material will be returned to the cosmic plasma. Thus, a characteristic of curvature-cosmology is that although individual galaxies will be born, live and die, the overall population will be statistically the same for any observable characteristic.”
This is refuted by the simple observation that the sun converts 4 million tons of material into radiation that is lost and never returns to become material again. The same holds true for any other star, so the Universe is steadily converting matter to radiation, meaning that if it is infinitely old, all matter would be long gone by now.
The curvature-cosmology is a ‘tired-light-theory’. And does not predict [and is incompatible with] the observed time dilation of high-redshift supernova light curves. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0104382 The time-dilation is a consequence of the standard interpretation of the redshift: a nearby supernova that takes 20 days to decay takes 40 days to decay at redshift z=1.
The book is riddled with similar errors, e.g. its treatment of the neutrino ‘problem’. too many errors to dwell on.
This is refuted by the simple observation that the sun converts 4 million tons of material into radiation that is lost and never returns to become material again. The same holds true for any other star, so the Universe is steadily converting matter to radiation, meaning that if it is infinitely old, all matter would be long gone by now.
It is very strange to hear this from a scientist. Radiation and matter are two mutually convertible forms of energy. In both infinite and closed models of the Universe, every radiated photon is eventually absorbed and becomes matter.
Crawford does explain, how and why heavier elements become hydrogen in various forms and helium (lithium being a stable transitional stage) in a process that make these elements prevailing in the Universe. It seems that you have never read his book; otherwise, you wouldn’t claim that Curvature Cosmology doesn’t explain one of its most basic, experimentally proved tenets.
As to “acoustic peaks,” I’ve never heard this argument before, and it will take time for me to research the meaning of your argument, if it has any.
I will not waste my life by engaging in “reference and citation” verbal wars. If you really understand something that I don’t, it shouldn’t be too difficult for you to explain it in several clear and logical sentences, without relying on external authority.
If, on the other hand, you don’t really understand the subject but want to create an impression that others are incapable of grasping your wisdom, you would condescendingly mention this or that phenomenon, refer to this or that authority by reference in passing, and make NLP conclusions without really connecting the dots. For this, I don’t have time.
Alexander Feht says:
August 26, 2010 at 11:20 pm
It is very strange to hear this from a scientist. Radiation and matter are two mutually convertible forms of energy. In both infinite and closed models of the Universe, every radiated photon is eventually absorbed and becomes matter.
Absorbed photons do not become matter. Simple as that.
Crawford does explain, how and why heavier elements become hydrogen in various forms and helium
no, he postulates that. doesn’t explain anything.
The curvature-cosmology is a ‘tired-light-theory’. And does not predict [and is incompatible with] the observed time dilation of high-redshift supernova light curves. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0104382 The time-dilation is a consequence of the standard interpretation of the redshift: a nearby supernova that takes 20 days to decay takes 40 days to decay at redshift z=1.
As to “acoustic peaks,” I’ve never heard this argument before, and it will take time for me to research the meaning of your argument, if it has any.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/PHTOAD000061.pdf
Sorry, Crawford’s book is junk, and you have been taken in.
Leif, I was talking to a solar researcher the other day at my university, and he said the bright faculae around sunspots didn’t account for the energy difference between the cooler spot and the hotter surroundings. Do you agree, and if so, where is the energy going? Is it heading outwards along with the solar wind, or looping back through coronal holes to the neighbouring spot of opposite polarity. Or sometimes one, sometimes the other?
tallbloke says:
August 27, 2010 at 12:44 am
the bright faculae around sunspots didn’t account for the energy difference between the cooler spot and the hotter surroundings.
It is very difficult to communicate correctly. What he mean is that the difference is not channeled over to the faculae. The faculae have their own energy output which is actually twice the sunspot deficit. The cooling of the spot just means that the outward flow of energy is spread over a larger area. It gets out eventually, no funny looping or strange contortions.
This is a [good] review of what we know about the structure of a sunspot:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/moradi_2010.pdf
Sorry, Crawford’s book is junk, and you have been taken in.
I am sure Dr. Crawford would say the same thing about your wild guesses, Dr. Svalgaard. BBT has many more weaknesses than CCT, and you know it.
P.S.
One of the most famous examples of the mutual convertibility of radiation and matter is Einstein-Bose effect, where atoms become waves, and waves become atoms again.
And, the last time I’ve heard, photons were constantly absorbed by matter, resulting in higher-energy states of the particle having mass — therefore, becoming part of the matter. You literally refuse to see what is happening n your eyes, Dr. Svalgaard.
Alexander Feht says:
August 28, 2010 at 2:59 am
One of the most famous examples of the mutual convertibility of radiation and matter is Einstein-Bose effect, where atoms become waves, and waves become atoms again.
The ‘waves’ are not radiation but refer to the wave-structure of matter.
And, the last time I’ve heard, photons were constantly absorbed by matter, resulting in higher-energy states of the particle having mass
And are promptly re-emitted. So listen again.
Alexander: Have some respect. You are a music composer talking to a physicist. Imagine how you’d feel if Leif came onto you patch and waxed lyrical about what a load of bolox Benjamin Britten is in particular and classical music is in general with all the bravado of distinguished conductor.