Artist and astrophotographer Alan Friedman talked to Wired blogger Lisa Grossman about he got an incredible photo of the Sun in his downtown Buffalo, NY backyard - and you can too.

He hooked his telescope to a hydrogen-alpha filter
which selects a tiny slice of the visible light spectrum. Hydrogen, the chief component of the sun, radiates strongly in this deep-red light, letting both the sun’s outer layers and the feathery filaments that extend away from the disk show up in sharp detail (see photos below).
but instead of taking stills, he took video - and here is an interesting part:
he inverted the images, making all the dark spots light and the light spots dark. This is an unusual thing for solar photographers to do, he says, but it gives a more authentic view of the sun.
Alan Friedman sun photo
© Alan Friedman | all rights reserved

See his site for the rest of the magic and read Wired for the rest of the details.