These are definitely the most amazing, phenomenal photos of the sun I have ever seen! Alan Friedman of Buffalo, New York is an amateur astrophotography who captures amazing photographs of the sun through a telescope in his backyard. He uses special filters that allow the photos to be captured without destroying his camera or his eyes.  

These photos must be viewed in full size in order to truly appreciate the detail captured of the sun. Clicking on any image will open it in another tab. Click on the new image in the new tab one more time to enlarge to full size. You may scroll around the screen to view various parts of the photo. I never imaged the beauty and artistic quality the surface of the sun possesses. Beautiful swirls all fitting together with fascinating puffs of gas from the sunspots scattered about. Coronal Holes (areas where the sun’s corona is darker, and colder, and has lower-density plasma than average) photographed with magnificent detail – they remind me of polarity poles which exist on planets.

Without further ado…. Here is a full image of the sun with color. The full size image is 1800 x 1853.

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Here is the same image in black and white, full size is 2211 × 2122, and was featured in Discover:

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Friedman refers to this next image as a photo of the “pachydermosphere,”  which is “a little known region above the atmosphere of the sun where elephants roam.” Do you see the elephant? Use a little bit of nephelococcygia and you will see the elephant. Full size is 1309 × 1071, and was featured in SpaceWeather website.

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Next is Friedman’s image that was featured as the Astronomy Picture of the Day on March 14, 2012. Full size is 1080 × 823.

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The next two are photos that capture the transit of the International Space Station. Friedman describes the day he took these images:

I drove to the Winter Star Party for the steady skies, warm temperatures and the company of good astronomy friends. But when I heard that the ISS would transit the sun nearby, (thank you Alan Traino) I had to give it a try. I was scheduled to give my talk 12:30-1:30 – the transit centerline was 69 minutes later, 20 miles to the north on Marathon.With help from Brian Shelton and Mark Beale, I finished my talk, jumped into the car with solar imaging gear and we got set up just in time to catch it. I underestimated the narrowness of this event. We were about 5000 feet south of the centerline in a good location… another 500 feet and we would have missed it entirely. Lucky day! The space shuttle Discovery, on its final mission for NASA, is docked to the ISS.

Full size is 1099 × 1099.

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Full size is 1154 × 1154.

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Here are a variety of other photos and close-up images.

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Please check out Alan Friedman’s website, Averted Imagination. And his Tumblr page, too.

Related articles

• Alan Friedman takes mind-blowing photos of the sun from home (boingboing.net)
• Photographer Captures Detailed Photos of the Sun From His Backyard (petapixel.com)
• These Stunning Images of the Sun Were Snapped From a Dude’s Backyard (gizmodo.com)
• Awesome Sun Photos From His Backyard By Alan Friedman (ahmadalijetplane.wordpress.com)
• Photographer captures Stunning pictures of the Sun from his garden (larkalong.wordpress.com)

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