What was the ruby dot at the bottom of the penumbra during the April 8 eclipse?
Prominences & The Chromosphere
Immediately after the diamond ring and during totality, Prominences may be seen. They will appear as pink fiery features extending out from the black disc of the moon. They are actually giant gaseous extensions from the Sun. How many you will see, will depend on how active the sun is at the time of the eclipse. Also visible for a split second after the diamond ring, you can briefly see the sun’s Chromosphere. This shows as a pink layer very close to the black disc but quickly hides from view as totality progresses. The Chromosphere is a thin layer of mainly hydrogen gas in the Sun’s atmosphere
And the word you were looking for there was “corona”, not “penumbra”.
But yeah, a prominence. One of my friends was at the annual Solar Physics Division meeting (which they scheduled at a point along totality, of course) and he confirmed it.
Thanks.
I lost the image in a 5" telescope at totality. Surprised I could not see the corona. Perhaps if I had removed the solar filter.
Oh, yeah, you’re not going to see any corona through a solar filter. Or pretty much anything else, aside from the photosphere (the bright surface of the Sun).
My thought was not having to post in Braille.
Anyway, it was extremely cool.
I was surprised at how much sunlight there was when only a tiny sliver of the sun was visible.
I guess you could call that “narrow daylight”
About 30 years ago (May 10, 1994) I was literally in the center of an annular eclipse and it still looked like broad daylight.
I was surprised at how light it was. In all the movies it goes totally dark, and the guys about to be executed by indigenous people claim they can bring the sun god back.
The 2017 eclipse was noticeably darker, for me. I think that may have been because in 2017 the sky was 100% cloud-free, and this year the sky was very cloudy, except for a hole where we could see the sun. I would guess that the clouds all around the moon’s shadow reflected some of the light, illuminating the landscape.
I was not. We are at solar maximum and where we were at, the corona was so bright one could have been fooled that it was an annular eclipse.
For me it was consistent with the other two full eclipses I saw, with light levels similar to twilight right after sunset. (Perhaps even a little more, as you don’t have a west-to-east gradient of light to dark.) It doesn’t get pitch black right after sunset, so why would I expect night levels of darkness?
Still, it’s plenty eerie and dark.