The star of our solar system is constantly observed by scientists located around the world. The sun still has so much to teach us that we scroll its surface tirelessly to better understand its functioning.
The mountain bike telescope in Tenerife has a facelift with a revolutionary camera
The evolution of observation instruments allows us to see the sun like never before. Witness a series of 8K resolution images which reveal breathtaking details on the surface of our star.
These shots were obtained thanks to a new camera installed on the mountain bike telescope (Vacuum Tower Telescope) of the Tenerife Teide Observatory. This has been operational since 1988. He has largely contributed to the study of the sun over the decades.
Nevertheless, his most beautiful observations may well be to come with this revolutionary camera. Developed by the Leibniz Institute of Astrophysics of Potsdam (AIP) in Germany, the camera captures 100 images with short exposure in 4 seconds.
The 8K resolution offers a spectacular overview of solar granulation
These shots are then combined to form a single image in 8K resolution. The result is then spectacular. As you can see on the images, the camera accurately captures solar granulation.
This is all the convection cells that make up the surface of the sun. Many hundred kilometers wide, each granule represents an area where hot gas rises from inside the sun before descending.
“Our expectations concerning the camera system were widely satisfied from the start,” said Robert Kamlah, the project manager as part of his doctoral thesis at AIP and the University of Potsdam.
A wider field of observation to better understand the sun
Compared to solar telescopes, the mountain bike telescope has the advantage of having a larger image field. This can reach 200,000 kilometers in diameter. It is much more than the 75,000 kilometers typical of other solar telescopes.
This difference therefore makes it possible to observe the structures of the sun on a large scale. The rapid imaging of the mountain bike telescope eliminates disturbances of the earth's atmosphere on the final result.
Precise images to explore the mechanisms of solar activity
Concretely, this means that we can observe structures of only 100 kilometers on the surface of the sun.
“To better understand solar activity, it is crucial not only to analyze the fundamental processes of the fine structure and the long -term evolution of global activity using various instruments, but also to study the temporal evolution of the magnetic field in active regions”, explains Rolf Schlichenmaier, scientist at the Institute of Solar Physics.
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