Sunspots
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Sunspot and C5-flare
Dunn Solar Telescope (DST)
The Rapid Oscillations in the Solar Atmosphere (ROSA) instrument is a high cadence broad-band imager installed as a common-user instrument on the Dunn Solar Telescope at the National Solar Observatory in New Mexico since August 2008. It was designed, built and maintained by Queen's University Belfast. It is capable of imaging the lower solar atmosphere simultaneously in six bandpasses at typical frame rates of 30 frames-per-second and a diffraction-limited spatial sampling of 0.069 arcsecs/pixel.
This image was taken on 25th of October 2014 of active region 12192 where a C5 class flare was captured. The image is of one of the spots of the active region as it is seen in the photosphere and the image was taken with the G-band filter (430.5nm) with ROSA. The umbra and penumbra of the spots are instantly recognizable; however, white light signatures of the flare can also be seen at the top of the image. These brightenings are characteristic of the high energies associated with flares and are an interesting topic of research for solar physicists.
Image credit: Peter H. Keys (QUB)