Precise Determination of the Orientation of the Solar Image

Accurate heliographic coordinates of objects on the Sun have to be known in several fields of solar physics. One of the factors that affect the accuracy of the measurements of the heliographic coordinates is the accuracy of the orientation of a solar image. In this paper the well-known drift method for determining the orientation of the solar image is applied to data taken with a solar telescope equipped with a CCD camera. The factors that influence the accuracy of the method are systematically discussed, and the necessary corrections are determined. These factors are as follows: the trajectory of the center of the solar disk on the CCD with the telescope drive turned off, the astronomical refraction, the change of the declination of the Sun, and the optical distortion of the telescope. The method can be used on any solar telescope that is equipped with a CCD camera and is capable of taking solar full-disk images. As an example to illustrate the method and its application, the orientation of solar images taken with the Gyula heliograph is determined. As a byproduct, a new method to determine the optical distortion of a solar telescope is proposed.     

A Regularized Image Restoration Algorithm for Lossy Compression in Astronomy

Astronomical images currently provide large amounts of data. Lossy compression algorithms have recently been developed for high compression ratios. These compression technique introduce distortion in the compressed images and for high compression ratios, a blocking effect appears. We propose a modified compression algorithm based on the hcompress scheme, and we introduce a new decompression method based on the regularization theory The image is restored scale by scale in a multiresolution scheme and the information lost during the compression is recovered by applying a Tikhonov regularization constraint. The experimental results show that the blocking effect is reduced and some measurements made on a simulated image show that the astrometric and the photometric properties of the restored images are improved.     

ASO-S/HXI太阳指向镜算法研究

硬X射线成像是研究太阳耀斑等爆发现象的重要手段.由于采用调制成像而非直接成像的原因, X射线图像在日面上的位置需要借助太阳指向镜提供的仪器指向的日面坐标来确定.因此,指向信息对于耀斑定位实现多波段研究,理解太阳耀斑的物理过程具有重要的科学意义.在此对两种太阳指向镜指向信息的获取算法进行了测试.结合太阳指向镜的设计方案,首先利用SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory)/AIA (Atmospheric Imaging Assembly) 4500?的数据产生测试图像,其次对其进行二值化处理,分别提取日面轮廓和4个边角指定区域面积;最后分别利用最小二乘法和四象限法对太阳中心坐标进行反演.初步结果显示最小二乘法受随机噪声影响小,定位精度相对稳定约为0.25′′,并可提供四象限法解算的初值;后者的精度可以优于0.14′′,但受随机噪声影响较大.两种算法的精度都显著优于硬X射线成像仪(Hard X-ray Imager, HXI)太阳指向镜的设计要求,可为指向数据在将来科学分析中的实际应用提供参考.     

MINVIT: Multi Instrumental Visualization Tool for Solar Physics

In recent years much effort has been devoted to constructing systems for sharing resources within the solar physics community. Several advanced archives and data analysis systems do exist, but there is low availability of data visualization tools for displaying simultaneous multi instruments/wavelengths solar data. Meanwhile map server technology has received great attention by the IT researcher and geophysical community. In this paper we discuss a possible use of an open source environment for building spatially enabled Internet applications for the visualization and analysis of solar physics data sets. We present the preliminary status of the MINVIT (Multi Instrumental Visualization Tool) project, which shall be able to merge images and information produced by different instruments in a single/synoptic image available on-line. Moreover, the tool is designed in order to allow the visualization of the temporal evolution of data. We further discuss the possible integration into the grid framework, focusing on a middleware able to query EGSO resources such us UOC and SEC in order to include data from several space and ground-based solar observatories.     

Wavelet Spectrum Analysis Of Eit/Soho Images

The extreme ultraviolet imaging telescope (EIT) of SOHO offers a unique record of the solar atmosphere for its sampling in temperature, field of view, resolution, duration, and cadence. To investigate globally and locally its topology and evolution during the solar cycle, we consider a multi-scale approach, and more precisely we use the wavelet spectrum. We present three results among the applications of such a procedure. First, we estimate the typical dimension of the supergranules as seen in the 30.4 nm passband, and we show that the evolution of the characteristic network scale is almost in phase with the solar cycle. Second, we build pertinent time series that give the evolution of the signal energy present in the corona at different scales. We propose a method that detects eruptions and post-flaring activity in EUV image sequences. Third, we introduce a new way to extract active regions in EIT images, with perspectives in, e.g., long-term irradiance analysis.     

New vacuum solar telescope and observations with high resolution

The New Vacuum Solar Telescope(NVST) is a one meter vacuum solar telescope that aims to observe fine structures on the Sun. The main goals of NVST are high resolution imaging and spectral observations, including measurements of the solar magnetic field. NVST is the primary ground-based facility used by the Chinese solar research community in this solar cycle. It is located by Fuxian Lake in southwest China, where the seeing is good enough to perform high resolution observations. We first introduce the general conditions at the Fuxian Solar Observatory and the primary science cases of NVST. Then, the basic structures of this telescope and instruments are described in detail. Finally, some typical high resolution data of the solar photosphere and chromosphere are also shown.     

A rigorous method of calculating the deflection of light in the gravitational field of the sun

Starting from the equation for the path of a photon in a gravitational field, we give a method of calculating the deflection of starlight in the solar field. The transformation from the non-inertial system at the Sun to the locally inertial system of the observer is considered. Calculation was made under the Schwarzschild metric. Our calculated results for the deflection before making coordinate transformation agree well with the results according to the IAU formulae, but when an accuracy of 0'.'001 is required, then the coordinate transformation must be included.     

The dependence of the kolmogorov entropy of mappings on coordinate systems

It is now known that the Lyapunov characteristic numbers (LCNs) are a good indicator of stochasticity of mappings or dynamical systems. But the LCNs and the Kolmogorov entropy depend on the norm. In this paper we investigate under what coordinate transformations the LCNs and the Kolmogorov entropy are kept constant and give some numerical examples.     

用SAVQ技术实现太阳射电频谱的数据压缩

对自适应矢量量化（SAVQ）技术在太阳射电频谱数据压缩中的应用进行了有意义的讨论．给出一种压缩比和失真可调的SAVQ压缩方法,指出提高数据压缩比的有效方法之一为样本集成,同时介绍了用该技术对北京天文台太阳射电频谱仪上的两个波段（1．0GHz－2．0GHz和2．6GHz－3．8GHz）的观测数据进行压缩的实用效果,并与国际同行所用的ICON方式进行性能比较．最后展示了数据压缩技术及其在天文上的应用．     

太阳宁静区的高分辨率像复原

本文介绍在怀柔６０ｃｍ多通道太阳望远镜上运用斑点干涉像复原方法所取得的一些初步结果,对用短暴光方法（暴光时间不大于１０毫秒）获得的一系列“冻结”大气后的目标像用斑点干涉像复原方法进行处理,即可获得消除了地球大气影响的目标复原像,斑点掩模法即为斑点干涉像复原方法的一种,我们用它对日面中心的宁静区米粒进行处理,复原出了分率不劣于０．〃５的白光米粒象。     

Can We Constrain Solar Interior Physics by Studying the Gravity-Mode Asymptotic Signature?

Gravity modes are the best probes to infer the properties of the solar radiative zone, which represents 98% of the Sun’s total mass. It is usually assumed that high-frequency g modes give information about the structure of the solar interior whereas low-frequency g modes are more sensitive to the solar dynamics (the internal rotation). In this work, we develop a new methodology, based on the analysis of the almost constant separation of the dipole gravity modes, to introduce new constraints on the solar models. To validate this analysis procedure, several solar models – including different physical processes and either old or new chemical abundances (from, respectively, Grevesse and Noels (Origin and Evolution of the Elements 199, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 15, 1993) and Asplund, Grevesse, and Sauval (Cosmic Abundances as Records of Stellar Evolution and Nucleosynthesis CS-336, Astron. Soc. Pac., San Francisco, 25?–?38, 2005)) – have been compared to another model used as a reference. The analysis clearly shows that this methodology has enough sensitivity to distinguish among some of the models, in particular, among those with different compositions. The comparison of the models with the g-mode asymptotic signature detected in GOLF data favors the ones with old abundances. Therefore, the physics of the core – obtained through the analysis of the g-mode properties – is in agreement with the results obtained in the previous studies based on the acoustic modes, which are mostly sensitive to more external layers of the Sun.     

The search for possible time variations in Davis' measurements of the argon production rate in the solar neutrino experiment

With the gradual accumulation of experimental data in the solar neutrino experiment of DAVIS and collaborators (runs 18–74 for 1970–1982), the question, whether there are time variations of the solar neutrino flux, is of renewed interest. We discuss the mathematical-numerical methods applied to the statistical analysis of DAVIS ' argon-37 production rate up till now known in the literature. These methods are characterized by the arbitrary arrangement of the DAVIS data in a time series. We perform a certain Fourier transformation for unequally-spaced time series of the measuring data of the argon-37 production rate, discuss the discovered periods and give significance criteria with respect to each period. We find that all periods discussed in the literature are contained in our series of periods. Pointing out the more mathematical character of the time series analysis we emphasize the predominant significance of the detected periods.     

JPEG2000 Image Compression on Solar EUV Images

For future solar missions as well as ground-based telescopes, efficient ways to return and process data have become increasingly important. Solar Orbiter, which is the next ESA/NASA mission to explore the Sun and the heliosphere, is a deep-space mission, which implies a limited telemetry rate that makes efficient onboard data compression a necessity to achieve the mission science goals. Missions like the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and future ground-based telescopes such as the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, on the other hand, face the challenge of making petabyte-sized solar data archives accessible to the solar community. New image compression standards address these challenges by implementing efficient and flexible compression algorithms that can be tailored to user requirements. We analyse solar images from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument onboard SDO to study the effect of lossy JPEG2000 (from the Joint Photographic Experts Group 2000) image compression at different bitrates. To assess the quality of compressed images, we use the mean structural similarity (MSSIM) index as well as the widely used peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) as metrics and compare the two in the context of solar EUV images. In addition, we perform tests to validate the scientific use of the lossily compressed images by analysing examples of an on-disc and off-limb coronal-loop oscillation time-series observed by AIA/SDO.     

An analysis of the radial velocity curves of close binary systems,I

The aim of the present paper will be to develop a theory of the radial-velocity changes of the components of close binary systems, with special attention to phenomena arising from finite dimensions of such components and their mutual distortion as well as irradiation. It is particularly stressed that the deformability of fluid stars and gas motions in their atmospheres can give rise to systematic differences between the observed radial velocities of such stars and those of their mass centres.In Section 2 (which follows a brief statement of the problem outlined in Section 1) we shall introduce the coordinate systems subsequently employed to treat various aspects of our problem: Section 3 will be concerned with an extraction of information from the radial-velocity component of absolute motions of the mass-centres of such stars; and in Section 4 we shall generalize the classical work by an investigation of radial velocities at any point of the apparent disks of distorted components, and their relation to the motion of their centres of mass. Section 5 will contain an evaluation of the effects of distortion, on radial velocity, averaged over the entire visible disk of the respective star at different phases; and in Section 6 we shall extend the same treatment to stars undergoing eclipses.An investigation of the effects, on the observed radial velocities, of atmospheric streaming caused by mutual irradiation of the two stars is being postponed for a subsequent communication.     

High Resolution Solar Speckle Imaging With the Extended Knox–Thompson Algorithm

We present an implementation of the extended Knox-Thompson (EKT) speckle reconstruction algorithm dedicated to solar observations. EKT speckle imaging yields nearly diffraction-limited images from bursts of short exposure solar observations under a wide range of seeing conditions. Our implementation supports field dependent amplitude calibration to permit analyzing data obtained with a partially compensating adaptive optics systems. The principles of the method and some technical details of our implementation are discussed. We have performed various tests using simulated data of representative solar scenes. The simulations include the effects of seeing and noise with the exception of anisoplanatism. The expected photometric error of a reconstructed image amounts to a few percent of the mean intensity under seeing conditions ranging from poor to excellent. We also present sample reconstructions of real data and discuss issues arising from anisoplanatism.     

The route to chaos during a pulsation event

A time series analysis of a pulsation event in solar radio emission provides an evolution from a regular doubly periodic phase to an irregular behaviour. Applying some techniques developed in the theory of nonlinear dynamic systems to this irregular stage suggests that there exists a low-dimensional attractor. Estimates of the maximum Lyapunov exponent give some evidence to deterministic chaos. The sudden transition from a regular to a chaotic structure is identified as a part of the Ruelle-Takens-Newhouse route to chaos which is typical in nonlinear systems. It is checked whether this pulsation event may be interpreted in terms of known pulsation models. Consequences for models, which are suitable to describe such an evolution, are discussed.     

基于盲退卷积的AIA图像增强方法

太阳图像中存在各种不同尺度、亮度和结构的物理活动现象,由于太阳日冕高动态活动和传感器设备等因素的影响,太阳图像成像质量不佳。根据太阳动力学天文台(Solar Dynamic Observatory,SDO)的大气成像仪(Atmospheric Imaging Assenbly,AIA)拍摄不同波段数据结构的动态范围大、噪声大、结构相对模糊等特点,提出一种基于盲退卷积的图像增强方法。首先对图像进行去噪和降低动态范围的处理,基于图像功率谱的分布假设,从原图中估计点扩散函数(Point Spread Function,PSF)的功率谱;然后使用相位提取算法恢复点扩散函数的相位,再退卷积得出较高质量的目标图像;最后通过轮廓切片分析、功率谱分析以及点扩散函数分析对增强结果进行定量和定性评价。实验结果表明,相比现有的图像增强方法,该方法在有效增强太阳日冕图像细节结构的同时,能够复原原图中因模糊无法识别的结构。     

Measurement of the solar wind velocity with cometary tail rays

Cometary tail rays are traces of the magnetic fields caught in the cometary magnetosphere. Time variations of these rays give us a way to measure the local solar wind velocity at the location of a comet. We introduce a simple method for determining the radial velocity of the solar wind by observing the ray folding motion, and show an example of its application to comet P/Brorsen-Metcalf 1989o, which resulted in 340 ± 35 km s^–1.     

High resolution reconstruction of solar prominence images observed by the New Vacuum Solar Telescope

A high resolution image showing fine structures is crucial for understanding the nature of solar prominence. In this paper, high resolution imaging of solar prominence on the New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST) is introduced, using speckle masking. Each step of the data reduction especially the image alignment is discussed. Accurate alignment of all frames and the non-isoplanatic calibration of each image are the keys for a successful reconstruction. Reconstructed high resolution images from NVST also indicate that under normal seeing condition, it is feasible to carry out high resolution observations of solar prominence by a ground-based solar telescope, even in the absence of adaptive optics.