APOD: 2022 November 6 - Dark Ball in Inverted Starfield

Good Sunday afternoon, Rallypoint, and welcome to the November 6th edition of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD): "Dark Ball in Inverted Starfield." Does this image look somewhat familiar? What if I told you that it is our Sun? Today's APOD was taken during the last Solar Maximum in 2012, and filters out all light except the specific deep-red visible light emitted by a hydrogen electron as it falls from its third to second lowest energy level. This light, called H-alpha or Hα, is important to astronomers as it is used to observe features in the Sun's atmosphere, including solar prominences and the chromosphere.

And they sure pop out here. The Hα-filtered light has been converted to black and white and then inverted. The same processing was performed on the star field in the background. Our Sun is one of many stars: "He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names" (Ps 147:4, KJV). Cheers.