[meteorite-list] A Meteor impacted the Sun?

[Chris Peterson]

All prominences are dim compared with the surface of the Sun. If the 
surface is occluded by the Moon, prominences are visible to the naked 
eye. Outside of rather exotic optical systems, there is no way to block 
the surface of the Sun from the ground well enough to see prominences, 
so the only way pre-technological people would have seen prominences 
would have been during total solar eclipses.

We see prominence images made through narrow band filters, typically 
H-alpha, where the prominence is bright compared with the surface (or 
more accurately, nearly all of the prominence light is passed, and 
nearly all of the surface light is blocked).

Chris

*******************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On 6/8/2011 1:33 AM, Robert A. Juhl wrote:
> To: Sterling K. Webb, Count, List
>
> Would a flare of that size have been visible to ancient naked-eye
> observers if it had occurred during totality of an eclipse or if they
> had been observing its reflection in a pan of water, etc.?
>
> Regards
>
> Robert A. Juhl, Tokyo