Solar Halo

Yesterday there was a very strong and beautiful solar halo visible over Östersund. This type of halo is known as the 22° halo and down to the left of the strong halo you can also see a trace of the very rare 46° halo. The halo looks like an eye, the eye in the sky.

You can read more about halos here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(optical_phenomenon)

The Easter Solar Rabbit

The Eastern holidays are coming up and I thought that this photo would be a good representation for that holiday. It's a shot I took of the Sun on September 4 in 2013. While looking through the details in the images I found one section that had a prominence that has the shape of a rabbit leaping so I've named it The Easter Solar Rabbit.

For comparison, I've also included a scaled sized copy of planet "Egg" that has the same horizontal diameter as a scaled sized planet Earth would have had. Below you can also see a photo of the entire solar disc from that day.

Happy Easter!

Grand finale

Last night it was the last night with astronomical darkness here in Östersund, so from now on, the sky wont be completely dark anymore until autumn. But what a finale it was, great aurora that was easily seen even within the city lights.