Observe the Skies
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National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC
Free
Use the Observatory's safe solar telescopes to take a close-up look at our nearest star, the Sun. Learn about solar activity and its effects on Earth from knowledgeable staff and volunteers.
Accessibility: The terrace and Observatory dome are accessible. Viewing through the main telescope is fully accessible to all visitors with an extended eyepiece.
Schedules are subject to change and will be posted at Observatory entrance and at the Museum's Welcome Center. Viewings are dependent on clear weather.
This image of the Sun was taken on August 1, 2012 at 1:02 pm, with a red-light (hydrogen-alpha) telescope.
Several dark sunspots and brighter plages (or clouds of gas in the Sun's atmosphere) dot the disk.
On the left, a dark filament snakes across the Sun. It's an arch of gas above the Sun, following a magnetic loop. Interestingly, the filament runs off the edge of the Sun as we see it, making a small prominence. It is rare to see a filament connected to a prominence. However, they are the same phenomenon: a filament is a prominence seen from above. This image illustrates that they are the same.
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