What is the true color of the sun and how are we able to capture it in images?

[DB]

It it isn't a false color image of the sun, then how are we able to look at it this way if the sun is so bright? Wouldn't it just be a picture of bright light?

http://www.1spacewallpaper.com/sun-wallpaper/Sun-pictures_1024.htm

Ty

 

[tony873004]

Looks like it was taken through a Hydrogen-alpha filter.

 

[DB]

So it's color is assigned to the emission of waveleghts? Hydrogen-Alpha wavelenghts?

 

[tony873004]

I'm not sure. I've seen different color suns through hydrogen-alpha filters. Wish I could afford one

 

[russ_watters]

Wouldn't it just be a picture of bright light?

Regardless of the type of filter, it will be just a picture of a bright light unless the exposure time and amount of light gathered are controlled correctly. I have taken a few photos of the sun using a fast camera setting and a telescope with a dime-sized hole in the lens cap. A better way is with a filter that simply reduces the amount of light let through.

 

[Nereid]

It's likely a HeII image, taken by SOHO's Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (example: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/solar/eit_sl_304.jpg). If so, then it's definitely a filter (centred at 30.4 nm). The colours are false; IIRC, the technique is to choose two colours (plus black and white) and an intensity histogram - min intensity = black, max intensity = white, low intensity = dark red (for example), high intensity = pale yellow. I don't know how to create this in Photoshop, but it's quite simple to do in many other image processing apps.

 

[Phobos]

Hmm. I'd go with Nereid on this. It looks a lot more like SOHO photos than H-alpha photos I've seen.