Image Credit & Copyright: Jaime Vilinga - collaboration / Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
Explanation: The Sun's disk was totally eclipsed for a brief
20 seconds as the Moon's dark umbral shadow raced
across Pokwero
in northwestern Uganda on November 3rd. So this sharp telescopic view of
totality in clear skies from the central African locale was much sought after by
eclipse
watchers. In the inspiring celestial scene the Moon just covers the
overwhelmingly bright photosphere,
the lower, normally visible layer of the Sun's atmosphere. Extending beyond the
photosphere, the reddish hydrogen alpha glow of the solar chromosphere outlines the lunar silhouette,
fading into the Sun's tenuous, hot, outer atmosphere or corona. Planet-sized prominences
reaching beyond the limb of the active
Sun adorn the edges of the silhouette, including a cloud of glowing plasma
separated from the chromosphere near the 1 o'clock position.
