Sun Spotter 2.6

Sun Spotter is a simple tool for amateur astronomers and anyone interesting in the Sun. Sun Spotter displays the latest images of the Sun at the SOHO web site. Images can be saved to the Desktop as required. The SOHO web site makes available images taken by the SOHO probe observing the Sun. Sun Spotter provides a quick way to get at a variety of these images. The eight buttons running down from the top left are labelled according to the type of solar image they download. The first three are taken by the Michelson Doppler Imager. The Continuum and Sunspot images correspond quite closely to what you will see looking through a small telescope equipped with an appropriate solar filter (it is very dangerous to look directly at the Sun without a solar filter). The Magnetogram image shows the magnetic field, the black and white speckles indicating opposite polarities.The EIT or Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope images are taken at four different wavelengths, 171, 195, 284, and 304 Angstroms respectively, and essentially show different layers of the Sun at different temperatures. The LASCO or Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph blocks out the actual disc of the Sun and images the corona instead. The white circle at the centre of these images is an outline of the Sun, and from that it should be apparent that the C2 image is a narrower field of view than the C3 image.