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Special Physics Photo of the Week

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Totality! April 8, 2024 - Photo by Donald F. Collins We traveled to Shaker Heights, Ohio (next to Cleveland) to capture the total solar eclipse.  We woke up to some rain and solid clouds as a cold front passed through, but the front passed with beautiful clear skies by noon.  The totality began about 3:13 pm and lasted 3 min:49 sec. The total solar eclipse is characterized by the corona - the halo immediately surrounding the Sun.  The corona consists of ionized gases ejected from the surface of the Sun which glow with the spectra characteristic of the the elements in the Sun.  The shape of the corona is variable from eclipse to eclipse causing every solar eclipse to produce a different display.  The corona is also strongly shaped by the strong magnetic fields surrounding the Sun.  The eclipse also shows several solar prominences - the flame-like ejections of solar mater being "boiled" off into space.  The prominence protruding from the south limb (the bottom edge of the pho
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Physics Photo of the Week - September 22, 2023

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Physics Photo of the Week September 22, 2023 Sun Halo over the Arizona Desert - Photos by Dr. Betsy Arnold, University of Arizona Warren Wilson Professor Dr. Amy Boyd and her research colleagues: Margrit McIntosh, Betsy Arnold, and Lucinda McDade (director of the California Botanic Garden) were  observing environmental parameters near Tucson, Arizona when they noticed this magnificent atmospheric halo visible above the desert.  Lucinda McDade can be seen in the  photo making observations of desert plants.  Click on the photo and n otice the ruler next to the rock on her right side - one of several tools being used.   Regarding the ongoing research in the desert of Arizona Dr Boyd writes: Several of us (Amy Boyd, Margrit McIntosh, Betsy Arnold and Lucinda McDade) study the population biology of an endangered Sonoran Desert cactus, the Nichol's Turk's head cactus, Echinocactus horizonthalonius var. nicholii , in the Waterman Mountains of Arizona.  We've been studying the
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Physics Photo of the Week

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Physics Photo of the Week March 8, 2024 The Sun I photographe d this image of the Sun recently (Feb 26, 2024) using a 4-inch (104 mm aperture) telescope fitted with a special solar filter and a digital SLR camera.  The solar filter has a transmission of 1/100,000 amount of the incident light.  The solar filter also reddens the image.  Since the Sun's surface, or photosphere , has a temperature of about 5700 deg K, its true color is blue white - about the color of old-fashioned fluorescent light tubes. Notice the large sunspot dominating a group of sunspots on the center right of the Sun's image.  The Earth is only about 1/100 the diameter of the Sun, smaller than the size of the large sunspot.  Sunspots are cooler regions of the Sun's surface (about 2000 deg K cooler than the surrounding photosphere).  Sunspots are also known for strong magnetic fields directed out of the sunspots.  Thus a sunspot  resembles the north pole or south pole of a strong magnet.  This strong magn
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