December 13, 2002
On your birthday, the Earth completed another orbit — 584 million miles traveled since your last celebration.
The Crown of the Sun
Birthday · December 13, 2002
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published December 13, 2002. Credit: (C2002) Wendy Carlos & Jonathan Kern (all rights reserved). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
During a total solar eclipse, the Sun's extensive outer atmosphere or corona is an awesome and inspirational sight. Yet the subtle shades and shimmering features of the corona that engage the eye span a brightness range of over 10,000 to 1, making them notoriously difficult to capture in a photograph. Still, this single five second exposure comes very close to revealing the crown of the Sun in all its glory. The color picture was taken with a specially built coronal camera and telescope during the December 4th total eclipse from Messina, South Africa. The camera's design incorporates a precisely made filter whose density, or ability to block light, decreases markedly with distance from the filter center, compensating for the difference between the brighter inner portion of the corona at the Sun's edge and the much fainter outer regions. The central spot in the image corresponds to a calibration window centered on the eclipsed Sun.
Image credit: (C2002) Wendy Carlos & Jonathan Kern (all rights reserved)