The characteristic size and brightness of facular points in the quiet photosphere

Using two very high resolution, white-light plates of the solar granulation, we measure a characteristic size and intensity for facular points. The plates were obtained with the 50 cm refractor at Pic-du-Midi Observatory using a 60 Å bandpass filter center at 5750 Å. After adjustment for atmospheric and instrumental smearing, we find a characteristic size of 0.22 arc sec and a characteristic intensity of 1.3 to 1.5 times the mean continuum intensity.NAS/NRC Resident Research Associate, on leave from Pic du Midi Observatory, France.Operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under contract AST 78-17292 with the National Science Foundation.