Sunsets from Big Bear Solar Observatory

Obtained with the 10.5 inch Singer solar telescope equipped with a roughly 0.5 nm bandpass Hydrogen alpha filter.

Each JPEG is a link to the full resolution TIFF (about 6MB).
The name of each file gives the UT of the frame as shown by the chronometer in the camera.

Little Hanna Rocks (6.4 km away)
Steve Allen, Rick Koenig

the 35 mm movie film miraculously realigned itself within the ensuing minute producing the following image


Little Hanna Rocks (6.4 km away)
Steve Allen, Rick Koenig


Sunset Peak (7.2 km away)
Steve Allen, Rick Koenig, Jim Drake


The BBSO sign (~5.9 km away)
Dave Shafer, Jim Drake, Steve Allen


1980 staff of BBSO

Director
Dr. Harold Zirin
Scientist in Charge
Dr. Alan Patterson
Observatory Staff
Summer students

1981

The next summer we followed the sun to sunset every night to produce a high resolution map of the western horizon. Where the horizon was conducive we added a few other silhouette shots, but the seeing was poorer. Those shots and the mosaic of the western horizon remain to be digitized.

Backstory

Once upon a time the National Bureau of Standards laboratories in Boulder Colorado had a solar telescope. Sometime before the summer of 1980 they took a photo of the sun setting over the Flatiron Range with someone standing on the ridge. In 1980 that photo was published in a solar observing newsletter, and it served as inspiration for us at BBSO.
Steve Allen <sla@ucolick.org>
UCO/Lick Observatory
University of California
Santa Cruz
, CA 95064

Phone: +1 831 459 3046