3D anaglyph format: use red/cyan glasses to view.
The Vacuum Tower Telescope at the National Solar Observatory on Sacramento Peak (USA) is capable of amazing resolution.
A sunspot is cooler than the rest of the solar surface, which is why it looks dark. It is also depressed (as can be seen when a sunspot is viewed near the edge of the solar disc.) The surrounding solar surface has small "bumps" on it from convecting hot solar material. (Granulation: actually not so small: each granule is about 1000km across). Their direction is distorted in the penumbra of a sun-spot by intense magnetic fields.
These features have been shown here by image processing the original picture (featured in Astronomy Picture of the Day). It is NOT true 3D but the author's imagination of how it might look in 3 dimensions.
NB: not in 3D
DOT (Dutch Open Telescope. La Palma) is very sophisticated and advanced image processing is added to achieve high resolution (but not adaptive optics). Here we see a sunspot in Hydrogen alpha and visible light (Blue filter),
movie by John Wattie
