# Why does the sun appear 13x bigger through diffraction in Voyager 1 image from 1990, but not from Earth? [closed]

The sun in the Voyager 1 photo here from 1990 appears 13x bigger than its diameter, diffraction of course. On Earth, photographs of the sun do not make it appear 13x bigger. Why?

A description of the photo from jpl.nasa.gov,

"The wide-angle was taken with the camera's darkest filter (a methane absorption band), and the shortest possible exposure (5 thousandths of a second) to avoid saturating the camera's vidicon tube with scattered sunlight. "

• Where do you get the value "13" times bigger from? Why do you say "diffraction of course" – James K Oct 26 '18 at 22:37
• distance to Venus, 77 solar diameters, see position of planets and Voyager 1 here, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#/media/… – user24662 Oct 26 '18 at 22:46
• Can you show your working? – James K Oct 26 '18 at 22:56
• its known data, the distance to Venus from the sun is on average 77 solar diameters, Venus is in the composite closest to the sun, and Earth the box next to it – user24662 Oct 26 '18 at 23:12
• Apparently the Sun also has 8 spikes coming out of it and an off-centre corona with 2 distinct zones with different brightness. – Rob Jeffries Oct 27 '18 at 22:01

• From what you said, it seems they were trying to get the "family picture", which in itself is really cool. But also from what you said, they used their darkest filter and their shortest exposure, so they did all they could do for the Sun. Even with those settings the Sun was just too bright (but not so bright as to wash out the whole picture). Voyager wasn't meant to image the Sun. If it was, they would have included an appropriate filter, like an H-$\alpha$ filter. Check out SOHO for a mission designed for that. – Dave Oct 27 '18 at 16:09