Backyard Universe: Here comes the sun

September 14, 1995

From Science Correspondent Miles O'Brien

ATLANTA (CNN) -- In some ways, solar astronomy can be easy. After all, the sun is hard to miss, and you don't have to worry about light pollution.

[sun scope] Still there are some obstacles - like clouds.

Solar observing should not be taken lightly. Never, never look at the sun through an unfiltered telescope. Solar filters are a must if you are watching the sun directly. To view indirectly project the image onto another surface. Whatever your viewing scheme, there should be plenty to look at on

In the next few years, the sun will follow an 11-year cycle, going from quiet, to active, and back to quiet.
(651K QuickTime movie)

It's just starting into a new burst of activity, marked by the discovery last month of the first sun spot in the new cycle.

[sun spots] "A sunspot is a region of lower temperature. They're not really black, it's just a relative effect, where they are ... up to a thousand degrees colder than the rest of the sun," says Lucy McFadden a University of Maryland astronomer.

Sun spots often have solar flares above them, which can disrupt radio communications on Earth. Flares also cause auroras like the so-called the northern and southern lights.

And while you may watch the solar sights through telescope filters or projected on screens, the pros have a number of their own sun-watching missions in the works.

The Ulysses spacecraft, launched in 1990, is cruising near the north pole of the sun. It's studying the sun's magnetic fields, radiation, and the atomic particles it emits - called the solar wind.

The Spartan satellite aboard the current shuttle mission is designed to gather additional data on the solar wind which will be compared with the readings taken at the same time by Ulysses.

The spacecraft should make another pass around the sun in about six years, when sunspot activity will be at a maximum.

"We will have an opportunity to look at the sun's behavior and measure the particles and fields and the composition of the particles at two times, when the sun spots are in their low phase, and when the sun spots are at peak phase," says McFadden.

Whatever its phase, astronomers say viewing the sun can be very rewarding. After all, there is no star more important to our home in the galaxy and catching a close-up glimpse should be worth the extra effort.

Backyard Universe: Here comes the sun

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