Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Due to bad weather Mike and I haven't had a lot to post Image wise so I thought that I would post some information about the solar spectrum broken down from the light from the sun.
Information taken from Wikipedia. 

Fraunhofer lines -  named for:

 Joseph Fraunhofer, ennobled in 1824 as Ritter von Fraunhofer (6 March 1787 – 7 June 1826) was a German optician. He is known for the discovery of the dark absorption lines known as Fraunhofer lines in the Sun's spectrum, and for making excellent optical glass and achromatic telescope objectives.





The major Fraunhofer lines, and the elements they are associated with, are shown in the following table:
Designation Element Wavelength (nm)
y O2 898.765
Z O2 822.696
A O2 759.370
B O2 686.719
C Hα 656.281
a O2 627.661
D1 Na 589.592
D2 Na 588.995
D3 or d He 587.5618
e Hg 546.073
E2 Fe 527.039
b1 Mg 518.362
b2 Mg 517.270
b3 Fe 516.891
b4 Mg 516.733
Designation Element Wavelength (nm)
c Fe 495.761
F 486.134
d Fe 466.814
e Fe 438.355
G' H 434.047
G Fe 430.790
G Ca 430.774
h 410.175
H Ca+ 396.847
K Ca+ 393.368
L Fe 382.044
N Fe 358.121
P Ti+ 336.112
T Fe 302.108
t Ni 299.444
Our images are at the 'C' line which is the Hydrogen Alpha wave length 656.281nm.
(nm = nanometer or one billionth of a meter)  Another wave length available to amateurs is the H and K line (Calcium) .  The Coronado Ca scope has unfortunately been discontinued.
There are many other solar features to see at different wave lengths, some of which do not pass through our atmosphere.  Check sites like solarmonitor.org to see these features.

1 comment:

Bill Griffith said...

Excellent information Bill , there is nothing like 656.281 NM