The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) was launched February 11, 2010 which produced a spectacular Sonic Boom Meets Sun Dog. One of the instruments on the SDO is the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA). The AIA is a collection of four telescopes which will photograph the Sun’s surface and atmosphere. The AIA uses a 4096×4096 CCD to capture the images of the Sun. The AIA will take these images across 8 different wavelengths (out of the 10 available wavelengths) every 10 seconds. In other words, that is eight 16.78 million pixels images every 10 seconds.
A false-color image sequence of the solar corona taken by SDO’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA). The images combine data from three AIA channels sensitive to light emitted by gas at different temperatures: red, green and blue at 2, 1.5 and 1 million degrees, respectively. The images span one day on the Sun, and follow a region against the Sun’s slow rotation. Each image spans 1.2 million kilometers — or 90 Earth diameters — horizontally.
credit: NASA, SDO/AIA
via YouTube – SDO: A Day In The Solar Corona (2010.05.05) [720p].
