Just to add to what R.H. van Gent wrote I am enclosing a copy of a email
from one of my astromny friends which might help to identify backround
stars or planets in this image or future images. Sometimes comets
(Called sun grazers) are visible. There are a few movies of some of this
comets disappearing into the sun, that would ruin your day!
-Brian White
Subject:
[pastro] Mercury and M22 on SOHO shots today
Date:
Thu, 4 Jan 2001 09:41:22 -0800
There is an interesting MPG taken by the SOHO satellite's C3 Coronagraph
on Jan
3rd. that shows the handle of the Sagittarius Teapot, Mercury and
Globular
Cluster M22 near the Sun. The file is about 686k and can be viewed at:
http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/daily_mpg/010103_c3.mpg
A graphic plot (46k) using Rob Matson's SKYMAP program identifying
stars,
Mercury and deep-sky objects in the corresponding field of view can be
seen at:
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=940828&a=7279996&p=37057767
Please note the plot is approximately correct in height to the field of
view of
the SOHO camera. The plot is too wide however, since the SOHO camera
frame is
square, not rectangular.
RICK BALDRIDGE
"R.H. van Gent" wrote:
>
> Dave Bell wrote:
>
> > WOW! Those are some great images...
> >
> > What are the LASCO instruments? Obviously the large central disk is an
> > occulting disk, allowing the corona to be photographed; I assume the
> > smaller central circle is the true diameter of the Sun. The LASCO C3 image
> > contains a lot of starfield background, so I suppose we could place the
> > solar image on a starchart, given the date and time of the image. Any idea
> > what the horizontal line artifact through the brightest star is? We know
> > that Saturn is in the opposite part of the sky this year!!
>
> The LASCO (Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph) instrument is designed
> to observe the solar corona (the very faint outer atmosphere of the
> Sun). From the Earth's surface this is only visible during a total solar
> eclipse but from space it is easily visible if you block the Sun's disk
> with an appropriately sized disk.
>
> The bright object left of the Sun in the LASCO C3 image is Mercury and
> the horizontal line appears to be an instrumental artefact. With the aid
> of a star atlas or a PC planetarium program you can easily recognize
> some of the brighter stars of Sagittarius in the background and if you
> would look tomorrow or a few days later you will notice that both the
> Sun as Mercury have moved with respect to these stars.
>
> ========================================================
> * Robert H. van Gent * Tel/Fax: 00-31-30-2720269 *
> * Zaagmolenkade 50 * *
> * 3515 AE Utrecht * E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
> * The Netherlands * *
> ********************************************************
> * Homepage: http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/homepage.htm *
> ========================================================
