SOLAR MAX

By Maia Weinstock
Staff Writer
17 August 2000

You could just walk outside and look up at the bright, shiny dot in the sky. But wouldn’t you rather see our raging sun blown up to the apparent size of an 8-story building?

With the sun as its star, a new wide-format IMAX film is wowing audiences with remarkable images and footage of our blazing solar parent. First released in London on June 28 the film, called SolarMAX, stands as a testament to the recent deluge of information scientists have gleaned about the glowing object that keeps our world ripe with life.

Using images and footage from several solar observatories including the wildly popular European Space Agency/NASA Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), director/producer John Weiley gives audiences a view of the sun that could only otherwise be seen with the aid of a melt-proof spaceship.

During the years 2000 and 2001, solar activities – including sun flares and solar-wind storms – reach a maximum, as these years mark the high point in the sun’s 11-year cycle of solar activity. SolarMAX takes advantage of SOHO’s unique vantage point during the months leading up to the maximum to show audiences the intricate details of the sun’s turbulent surface, including swooping loops of gases and ever-changing sunspots.

"The images from [SOHO] are spectacular," said Alison Roden of the London Science Museum, where the film is now playing. "The size and clarity they give will lead to a whole new understanding of how the sun works."

The film, which serves as a teaching tool not only for issues of the sun but for Earth’s magnetosphere as well, also features the history of solar studies and some of the basics of solar structure and physics.

Along with material taken from NASA and the European Space Agency, Weiley completed more than 20 weeks of on-location shooting for the film. Some of the solar phenomena brought to life include auroras over Greenland, a total solar eclipse in the Caribbean and various solstice and midnight-sun events.

Though currently showing exclusively in London, SolarMAX will be playing worldwide before long. The film opens in New York, Tokyo, Chicago and Copenhagen this September, and is scheduled to play at the remainder of the world’s more than 150 wide-screen IMAX theaters starting in October.

source: www.space.com