it seems to temporarily affect the alignment of the camera? you see the video framing get nudged a bit then return to original framing.
suggests something very close to the camera
frank
Looks like an occluding shutter to automatically shield the camera from the direct impact of CMEs. The time lapse movie that we're watching has been edited to remove the more fully-shuttered and completely black frames, but has retained a few frames with the shutter partially closing/opening. As Frank noted below, the image framing realigns when the shutter reopens.
I agree with Spearo, the optical axis is affected when it appears, and the limb of whatever it is is very sharp and perfectly round, suggesting it is near a focal plane.
I'm with you Matt...
Been watching this vid over and over since Theo posted it and I just can't help but think it is the moon. Video is dated 5th March.. New Moon.
Is it possible that as the SDO was orbiting.. it briefly passed through the moons penumbra?
I'm with you Matt...
Been watching this vid over and over since Theo posted it and I just can't help but think it is the moon. Video is dated 5th March.. New Moon.
Is it possible that as the SDO was orbiting.. it briefly passed through the moons penumbra?
The Moon it is - I was half joking - but thought it could only be a few things - fascinating to see!
Hmmm,
so why would the Moon
1) be in the FOV at all? and
2) be in sharp focus and
c) appear to nudge the alignment of the imaging frame
If you look closely, the FOV of the video shifts a bit during the "apparition" then resumes once it has past.
frank
1) As the camera is capturing the Sun and it was New Moon, the camera captured a partial solar eclipse.
2) The scope is focused for infinity? If it is focused for the sun, would it not be focused for the moon? (and everything else at 'infinity') A good example is the images by people that have captured planes and the ISS crossing the Sun's disc, everything is in sharp focus in those images.
3) Can't say I noticed the nudge.. I'm not saying it didn't happen.. just that I didn't notice.
Seems the video cannot be viewed now?
I don't know for a fact that it IS the Moon, It just seems the most plausible explaination to me.
It is the Moon - the telescope is in orbit and the Moon often gets in the view - I have seen this many times - it bounces around as all the objects are flying through space and the video is just a series of images showing a weird eclipse!
Thanks Arek that was very helpfull.
I was able to take a frame grab from the video and measure the diameters of the Sun and the "Moon"
The diameter of the red circle that fits the Sun's diameter was 140mm, the blue circle on the "Moon" is 128.5mm dia.
128.5/140 = 91.78% of the Sun's diameter.
Fortunately.. the video has date and time stamping.. so I plugged 2011-03-04 1300UT into CDC and got the apparent diameters of 29.7' for the Moon and 32.2' for the Sun.
29.7/32.3 = 91.95% of the Suns diameter.
