A comparison of the Sun with Earth at perihelion (closest to the Sun) on January 5, 2020 vs. the Sun with Earth near aphelion (farthest from the Sun)
A comparison of the Sun with Earth at perihelion (closest to the Sun) on January 5, 2020 vs. the Sun with Earth near aphelion (farthest from the Sun) on July 8, 2021, showing the slight difference in size of the Sun's disk due to Earth's changing distance from the Sun through the year. For this version I superimposed both images and split them down the middle. Earth was 152,100,527 kilometres from the Sun on the actual day of aphelion, July 5 (which was cloudy!) and 147,091,144 km from the Sun on January 5, 2020. On January 5, 2020 the Sun was at the closest perihelion of the 21st century (though by only a tiny margin), making for the largest solar disk we will see. So that made this a “supersun!” The disk was virtually spotless both days. I shot both with the same equipmment — the Astro-Physics Traveler 105mm refractor, with AP 2X Barlow for f/12 and with the Canon 60Da at ISO 100. The filter was the glass Thousand Oaks metal-on-glass filter which imparts a yellow tone to the image.
Size: 5400px × 3214px
Photo credit: © Alan Dyer / VWPics / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 25, 60da, aphelion, astrograph, canon, close-, comparison, cycle, disk, galaxy, minimum, perihelion, solar, split, spotless, sun, supersun, view
