The first ever image of the full solar corona in the Fe XI 789.2 nm spectral line was acquired during the total solar eclipse of 2006 March 29, by the Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii group, led by Shadia Habbal. Funding for this expedition was provided by an NSF grant to the University of Hawaii. Two surprising findings emerged from this image:

• the radial extent of the Fe XI emission
• the presence of localized Fe XI density enhancements in comparison with white light.

These findings were a consequence of the strong radiative excitation contribution, compared to the collisional excitation, to the intensity of the line. These observations imply that the localized ion density enhancements can occur are a consequence of reduced heating to heavy ions in the inner corona. These observations also enabled the first empirical determination of the transition from a collision-dominated plasma to a collisionless one in the corona, hence the determination of the freezing-in distance of the charge states of Fe, observed in the solar wind. See this ApJ paper for more details.
 

Note: If any page needs more than 100 KB to be downloaded, there exists its lower quality version appointed for slow connection.