The Sun's Fraunhofer Lines

  Solar lines and transmission of atmosphere

Wavelength (nm)

Color

Solar Source

Emiting atom or ion

Fraunhofer Designation (Balmer H lines)

Equivalent width (nm)

373.5

Purple

Photosphere

Fe

M

0.31

393.4

Purple

Chromosphere, Photosphere

Ca+

K

1.9

396.8

Purple

Chromosphere, Photosphere

Ca+

H

1.4

410.2

Blue

Photosphere

H

h (H-delta)

0.34

422.6

Blue-Green

Photosphere

Ca

g

0.15

434

Green

Photosphere

H

G' (H-gamma)

0.35

438.4

Green

Photosphere

Fe

d

0.11

486.1

Green

Photosphere

H

F (H-beta)

0.42

518.4

Yellow

Photosphere

Mg

b sub1

0.16

589

Yellow

Photosphere

Na

D sub2

0.08

589.6

Yellow

Photosphere

Na

D sub1

0.06

656.3

Red

Chromosphere, Photosphere

H

C (H-alpha)

0.41

 

Solar Spectrogram (courtesy of Meridon Olsen, Paris France) noting particular lines

CaII, K-line  3934 angstroms and CaII H-line 3968 angstroms

H-beta, F-line  4861 angstroms

b1 Mg, b2 Mg, b3 2 Fe, b4 Mg, D1 and D2 sodium

H-alpha, C-line, B atmosphere

A atmosphere

Three Ca lines

intensity graph of spectrogram

H I 1216 Å (152 kB GIF image) Temperature = 20,000 K
He II 304 Å (134 kB GIF image) Temperature = 80,000 K
Fe XII 193 Å (88 kB GIF image) Temperature = 1,500,000 K
Fe XIV 211 Å (81 kB GIF image) Temperature = 1,800,000 K
Si XII 44 Å (94 kB GIF image) Temperature = 2,000,000 K
White Light (141 kB GIF image) Temperature = 6,000 K
H I 6563 Å (76 kB GIF image) Temperature = 10,000 K
Ca II 3934 Å (79 kB GIF image) Temperature = 10,000 K
Magnetogram (64 kB GIF image)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gratings

The Eye