Unique Solar Eclipse Over Australia (April 20, 2023)

Composites of a highly processed eclipse image taken on 20 April 2023 by Petr Horálek, Milan Hlaváč, and Josef Kujal from the Czech Republic near Exmouth in Western Australia and a nearly co-temporal LASCO C3 image.

The corona revealed many "streamers" at all angles around the Sun, which is typical for the corona around solar maximum conditions. During low solar activity, the streamers are concentrated in latitudes near the solar equator. The bright object at around 3 o'clock in the composite image is Jupiter.

C2 Image: JPG [1.1M], Hi-res TIFF [3.0M]	C3 Image: JPG [103K], Hi-res TIFF [1.1M]
Credit: NASA/ESA (SOHO), P. Horálek/Institute of Physics in Opava; Josef Kujal (of the Astronomy Society of Hradec Kŕlové) and Milan Hlaváč.

By a stroke of luck, a coronal mass ejection (CME) had occurred about an hour and a half before this composite image was taken and, most remarkably, was visible not only in the LASCO C3 image but also in the ground-based eclipse image (at around 7 o'clock).

Solar corona of the Hybrid Eclipse 2023

Image: Full size PNG [1.9M], Hi-res TIFF [2.0M]

The ground-based eclipse image is a high-dynamic range image resulting from the processing of 38 individual exposures with varying exposure times between 1/4000 and 2 seconds. They were taken with a Canon 6D and a Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 lens at 200 mm. This highly processed image shows the moment of the "diamond-ring" effect at the end of totality. It reveals more than is visible to the naked eye. In particular, the CME is only visible due to the advanced imaging techniques applied by the authors.

These are not the first eclipse images by Petr Horálek we are featuring on this site. He also contributed the spectacular photographs of the 2021 eclipse over Antarctica.

Links: Unique Solar Eclipse over Australia

Credit: Petr Horálek/Institute of Physics in Opava, Milan Hlaváč, Josef Kujal, SOHO/LASCO (ESA & NASA).

SOHO began its Weekly Pick several years ago after sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display. Today, we use this area as 'Solar Picks' to highlight stories, events or activities but not as often as every week.