Seeing Prominences - 140 years ago

[Merlin66]

I'm reading C.A. Young's book "The Sun". published in 1882.
On the subject of Prominences he reminds us that they had never been seen until 1778 and then only briefly noted during the eclipse of that year. It was not until the eclipses of 1842 and 1851 that they were observed in detail. It was assumed they were fiery clouds in the Sun's atmosphere. First photographed by DeLaRue during the eclipse of 1861.
The spectroscope was developed during the mid 1850's and by the eclipse of 1868 could be used to analyse the solar spectrum during eclipse.
It was suggested by Lockyer and Janssen that the spectroscope could probably be used to isolate the light from the prominences and allow them to be seen in broad daylight without the need of an eclipse....
Huggin's first successful observation of a solar prominence ("protuberance") was made on the Febuary 13th 1869 and published in the "Proceedings of the Royal Society". He used a two prism spectroscope, and a red filter....
So, only 140 years ago we managed to regularly observe and record this solar phenonoma.. how things have changed.!!!!!!

[NickH]

You really should visit the RAS in London..

;-)