                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                              2021 September 21

                                Sun Spot Hill
                     Image Credit & Copyright: Jordi Coy

   Explanation: Is this giant orange ball about to roll down that
   tree-lined hill? No, because the giant orange ball is actually the Sun.
   Our Solar System's central star was captured rising beyond a hill on
   Earth twelve days ago complete with a delightfully detailed foreground.
   The Sun's disk showed five sunspots, quite a lot considering that
   during the solar minimum in solar activity of the past few years, most
   days showed no spots. A close look at the hill -- Sierra del Cid in
   Perter, Spain -- reveals not only silhouetted pine trees, but
   silhouetted people -- by coincidence three brothers of the
   photographer. The trees and brothers were about 3.5-kilometers away
   during the morning of the well-planned, single-exposure image. A dark
   filter muted the usually brilliant Sun and brought up great detail on
   the lower sunspots. Within a few minutes, the Sun rose far above the
   hill, while within a week, the sunspots rotated around the Sun, out of
   view. The captured scene, however, is now frozen in time for all to
   enjoy.

                        Tomorrow's picture: half day
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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