What is the distance of typical solar flares ??

I have Astronomical Giant Binos with Baader Film/shield which fits over
the ends . Havent used them to look at the sun yet ; but, was curious
as to how far solar flares leave the suns surface ??

Thanks, Dave

I have Astronomical Giant Binos with Baader Film/shield which fits over
the ends . Havent used them to look at the sun yet ; but, was curious
as to how far solar flares leave the suns surface ??

They can expell material at the sun's escape velocity and thus the gas leaves
the sun entirely (a Coronal Mass Ejection), although more typically, the
eruptive prominences and surges produced by flares rise less than 50,000
kilometers above the surface. However, the Baader film material will not
allow you to see solar flares. Doing this requires a very expensive
narrow-band filter centered on the H-alpha line in the red part of the
spectrum. Clear skies to you.
--
David W. Knisely
Prairie Astronomy Club: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org
Hyde Memorial Observatory: http://www.hydeobservatory.info/

**********************************************
* Attend the 11th Annual NEBRASKA STAR PARTY *
* July 18-23, 2004, Merritt Reservoir *
* http://www.NebraskaStarParty.org *
**********************************************

I have Astronomical Giant Binos with Baader Film/shield which fits over
the ends . Havent used them to look at the sun yet ; but, was curious
as to how far solar flares leave the suns surface ??

They can expell material at the sun's escape velocity and thus the gas leaves
the sun entirely (a Coronal Mass Ejection), although more typically, the
eruptive prominences and surges produced by flares rise less than 50,000
kilometers above the surface. However, the Baader film material will not
allow you to see solar flares. Doing this requires a very expensive
narrow-band filter centered on the H-alpha line in the red part of the
spectrum. Clear skies to you.
--
David W. Knisely
Prairie Astronomy Club: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org
Hyde Memorial Observatory: http://www.hydeobservatory.info/

**********************************************
* Attend the 11th Annual NEBRASKA STAR PARTY *
* July 18-23, 2004, Merritt Reservoir *
* http://www.NebraskaStarParty.org *
**********************************************

In article ,
wrote:
I have Astronomical Giant Binos with Baader Film/shield which fits over
the ends . Havent used them to look at the sun yet ; but, was curious
as to how far solar flares leave the suns surface ??

Like most of these things, it depends on your definition - the flare is the
chromospheric (and lower corona, in the case of loop-top X-ray emission)
manifestation of the Sun's magnetic field reconfiguring itself to a lower
stored-energy state. Other manifestations of the reconfiguration may include
ejections of mass through the corona (coronal mass ejections or CMEs)
which can then propagate into interplanetary space (interplanetary coronal
mass ejections or iCMEs, magnetic clouds..). Flaring can occur without
ejections of mass, and mass ejections can occur without flares (and when
they both occur the sequence is split about 50:50 between flare-first
and mass ejection first), but the larger the event the more likely you are
to have all the manifestations (flare, moreton wave, EIT wave, mass
ejection..). For this reason the trend is now to refer to "explosive events"
or "eruptive events" to cover all the results of the magnetic field
reconfiguring itself in a short period.

White-light flares are going to be fairly low down, hard X-ray emission can
come from further up (lower coronal heights, from reconnection sites at
severance point in ascending loops). iCMEs have been observed repeatedly by
Ulysses at 3-5 AU, by Cassini on its way to Saturn and by the Voyagers,
though IIRC not for some time - it depends on which manifestation of the
eruptive events you're interested in.

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
"Time has stopped, says the Black Lion clock
and eternity has begun" (Dylan Thomas)

In article ,
wrote:
I have Astronomical Giant Binos with Baader Film/shield which fits over
the ends . Havent used them to look at the sun yet ; but, was curious
as to how far solar flares leave the suns surface ??

Like most of these things, it depends on your definition - the flare is the
chromospheric (and lower corona, in the case of loop-top X-ray emission)
manifestation of the Sun's magnetic field reconfiguring itself to a lower
stored-energy state. Other manifestations of the reconfiguration may include
ejections of mass through the corona (coronal mass ejections or CMEs)
which can then propagate into interplanetary space (interplanetary coronal
mass ejections or iCMEs, magnetic clouds..). Flaring can occur without
ejections of mass, and mass ejections can occur without flares (and when
they both occur the sequence is split about 50:50 between flare-first
and mass ejection first), but the larger the event the more likely you are
to have all the manifestations (flare, moreton wave, EIT wave, mass
ejection..). For this reason the trend is now to refer to "explosive events"
or "eruptive events" to cover all the results of the magnetic field
reconfiguring itself in a short period.

White-light flares are going to be fairly low down, hard X-ray emission can
come from further up (lower coronal heights, from reconnection sites at
severance point in ascending loops). iCMEs have been observed repeatedly by
Ulysses at 3-5 AU, by Cassini on its way to Saturn and by the Voyagers,
though IIRC not for some time - it depends on which manifestation of the
eruptive events you're interested in.

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
"Time has stopped, says the Black Lion clock
and eternity has begun" (Dylan Thomas)

David Knisely wrote:

I have Astronomical Giant Binos with Baader Film/shield which fits over
the ends . Havent used them to look at the sun yet ; but, was curious
as to how far solar flares leave the suns surface ??

They can expell material at the sun's escape velocity and thus the gas leaves
the sun entirely (a Coronal Mass Ejection), although more typically, the
eruptive prominences and surges produced by flares rise less than 50,000
kilometers above the surface. However, the Baader film material will not
allow you to see solar flares. Doing this requires a very expensive
narrow-band filter centered on the H-alpha line in the red part of the
spectrum. Clear skies to you.

H-alpha scopes are much more expensive than Baader film - but havejust
got much cheaper - the Coronado PST is 500 usd (or 500 uk pounds - but
that's another story) I've just got one and, though the Sun isn't very
active it is very impressive. For the week that I've had the scope I
have seen prominences every single day (but probably not today thanks
to rain). There has always been at least one prominence that I would
guess to be around 2% of the Sun's diameter. 1% is an Earth diameter.
These things are BIG.

--
Martin Frey
http://www.hadastro.org.uk
N 51 02 E 0 47

David Knisely wrote:

I have Astronomical Giant Binos with Baader Film/shield which fits over
the ends . Havent used them to look at the sun yet ; but, was curious
as to how far solar flares leave the suns surface ??

They can expell material at the sun's escape velocity and thus the gas leaves
the sun entirely (a Coronal Mass Ejection), although more typically, the
eruptive prominences and surges produced by flares rise less than 50,000
kilometers above the surface. However, the Baader film material will not
allow you to see solar flares. Doing this requires a very expensive
narrow-band filter centered on the H-alpha line in the red part of the
spectrum. Clear skies to you.

H-alpha scopes are much more expensive than Baader film - but havejust
got much cheaper - the Coronado PST is 500 usd (or 500 uk pounds - but
that's another story) I've just got one and, though the Sun isn't very
active it is very impressive. For the week that I've had the scope I
have seen prominences every single day (but probably not today thanks
to rain). There has always been at least one prominence that I would
guess to be around 2% of the Sun's diameter. 1% is an Earth diameter.
These things are BIG.

--
Martin Frey
http://www.hadastro.org.uk
N 51 02 E 0 47

In article ,
Martin Frey wrote:
David Knisely wrote:

I have Astronomical Giant Binos with Baader Film/shield which fits over
the ends . Havent used them to look at the sun yet ; but, was curious
as to how far solar flares leave the suns surface ??

They can expell material at the sun's escape velocity and thus the gas leaves
the sun entirely (a Coronal Mass Ejection), although more typically, the
eruptive prominences and surges produced by flares rise less than 50,000
kilometers above the surface. However, the Baader film material will not
allow you to see solar flares. Doing this requires a very expensive
narrow-band filter centered on the H-alpha line in the red part of the
spectrum. Clear skies to you.

Not sure that you need H-alpha material /strictly/: I'm pretty sure
such things weren't around in the 1850s when Carrington and Hodgson
observed the great flare of 1859 - though that was probably the biggest
flare recorded, almost certainly bigger than the X45(?) event of 4th
November 2003 from the discussions I've heard. A *big* white-light flare
(coming from a very big field re-configuration) would be visible with a
telescope and projection-onto-screen system, but observing in H-alpha
would make many, many more events observable. You don't want to wait
150-odd years for the next observable event

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
"Time has stopped, says the Black Lion clock
and eternity has begun" (Dylan Thomas)

In article ,
Martin Frey wrote:
David Knisely wrote:

I have Astronomical Giant Binos with Baader Film/shield which fits over
the ends . Havent used them to look at the sun yet ; but, was curious
as to how far solar flares leave the suns surface ??

They can expell material at the sun's escape velocity and thus the gas leaves
the sun entirely (a Coronal Mass Ejection), although more typically, the
eruptive prominences and surges produced by flares rise less than 50,000
kilometers above the surface. However, the Baader film material will not
allow you to see solar flares. Doing this requires a very expensive
narrow-band filter centered on the H-alpha line in the red part of the
spectrum. Clear skies to you.

Not sure that you need H-alpha material /strictly/: I'm pretty sure
such things weren't around in the 1850s when Carrington and Hodgson
observed the great flare of 1859 - though that was probably the biggest
flare recorded, almost certainly bigger than the X45(?) event of 4th
November 2003 from the discussions I've heard. A *big* white-light flare
(coming from a very big field re-configuration) would be visible with a
telescope and projection-onto-screen system, but observing in H-alpha
would make many, many more events observable. You don't want to wait
150-odd years for the next observable event

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
"Time has stopped, says the Black Lion clock
and eternity has begun" (Dylan Thomas)

ANDREW ROBERT BREEN wrote:

Not sure that you need H-alpha material /strictly/: I'm pretty sure
such things weren't around in the 1850s when Carrington and Hodgson
observed the great flare of 1859 -

Some very intense flares have been seen in white light against the disk of the
sun, but these so-called "white light flares" are *very* rare as flares go,
and the material ejected by them is, of course, not visible in a white light
filter. During the peak of solar activity, I could observe almost every day
or so for a few hours and see at least one small flare (and major flares once
or twice per week) with my H-alpha filter, but none of these ever appeared in
white light. Even some of the monster X-class flares I have watched have not
quite passed into the white-light category. Clear skies to you.
--
David W. Knisely
Prairie Astronomy Club: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org
Hyde Memorial Observatory: http://www.hydeobservatory.info/

**********************************************
* Attend the 11th Annual NEBRASKA STAR PARTY *
* July 18-23, 2004, Merritt Reservoir *
* http://www.NebraskaStarParty.org *
**********************************************