Sun in H-alpha
G-type main-sequence star (G2V, yellow dwarf), age ~ 4.6 billion years, distance ~ 8.4 light-min. Every second, the Sun's core fuses about 600 million tons of H into He, and in this process converts 4 million tons of matter into energy (E=mc^2).
Roughly three-quarters of the Sun's mass consists of H (~73%); the rest is mostly He (~25%), with much smaller quantities of heavier elements, including O, C, Ne, and Fe.
The image was acquired with H-alpha-Filter (Hα) with a bandwidth of 0.07 nm. H-alpha is a deep-red visible spectral line of the hydrogen atom with a wavelength of 656.28 nm in air and 656.46 nm in vacuum.
The Earth is indicated in the image for size comparison.
Far in the future, when hydrogen fusion in the Sun's core diminishes to the point where the Sun is no longer in hydrostatic equilibrium, its core will undergo a marked increase in density and temperature which will push its outer layers to expand, eventually transforming the Sun into a red giant. This process will make the Sun large enough to render Earth uninhabitable approximately five billion years from the present. After this, the Sun will shed its outer layers and become a dense type of cooling star (a white dwarf), and no longer produce energy by fusion, but still glow and give off heat from its previous fusion.
Date: October 22-th, 2023 / 12:57 to 13:03 UTC
Equipment:
LUNT Ha 40/B1200, Alccd5, Firecapture 300s (ser), AS3 (44 exp. stacked), imppg, Affinity Photo, TOPAZ-denoise, FITSwork
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