Development of solar scintillometer

The index of scintillation measurement is a good parameter to compare different sites for image quality or ‘seeing’. We have developed a scintillometer, which is deployed on the high resolution SPAR telescope in the island site of Udaipur Solar Observatory, for the site characterization to specify the proposed MAST (Multi Application Solar Telescope). The scintillometer consists of a miniature telescope, termed as micro telescope (4 mm aperture, 15 mm focal length) mounted on a drive which tracks the Sun continuously, associated amplifiers and a data acquisition system. A photodiode is used as the detector. The telescope along with detector was obtained from National Solar Observatory (NSO), and is similar to the one used for Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) site survey. At USO we developed the amplifier and data acquisition system for the scintillometer. A 24-bit analog to digital converter based system was designed, assembled, tested and used as the data acquisition system (DAS). In this paper, we discuss the instrumentation and present the initial results.     

Considerations for the next generation of solar telescopes: A systems approach to solar physics

The exciting new high resolution images from the one meter Sunrise balloon telescope and the first images from the 1.6 meter Big Bear telescope together with the continuing data from the 1 meter Swedish Solar Observatory demonstrate the promise of the new generation of multimeter solar telescopes. While the promise of the new generation of telescopes is great the technical challenges to build them will require the efforts of a significant fraction of the solar community. In this talk I will emphasize the need for an integrated systems approach to the development of the telescope, its instruments, its software, and its operations and management structures. The experience of several decades of space mission has taught us a great deal about the value of planning mission development from the definition of the primary scientific objectives to the delivery of the data to the science community. Much of these lessons learned, often painfully, should provide guidance to those in developing the new telescope systems (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Development of ephemeris support in observations of distant radio sources and solar system objects at RATAN-600 radio telescope

New elements of the algorithmic and software bases of the ephemeris support for the RATAN-600 radio telescope observations of distant radio sources and objects of the Solar system are briefly described.     

A two-dimensional solar spectrometer

A precise two-dimensional positioning device has been developed for use in conjunction with a resonant scattering spectrometer to study the spatial distribution of solar velocity fields. The principle of operation and constructional details are discussed and the experimental performance is evaluated. As an illustration of its use preliminary data obtained from a meridional scan are presented.Proceedings of the 14th ESLAB Symposium on Physics of Solar Variations, 16–19 September 1980, Scheveningen, The Netherlands.     

Shape of small solar system bodies

The morphometric parameters are examined for the shape of fragments of ordinary chondrites, iron meteorites, S- and C-class stony asteroids, metallic asteroids, and icy small bodies of the Solar System. All small Solar System bodies are shown to have, depending on their composition and, hence, physical and mechanical properties, a specific shape that is unique to a given composition. C-class asteroids, the strength of which is almost three times less than that of S asteroids, differ from the latter in their less elongated shape. No systematic change is observed in the morphometric parameters (increased roundness or sphericity) of small bodies of differing compositions depending on their mass, which suggests that the hypothesis of creep in small Solar System bodies is unlikely to be true. The absence of creep confirms that, regardless of their composition, all small Solar System bodies are solid elastic bodies having an ultimate strength (tensile strength and compressive strength) and a yield strength.     

RATAN-600 radio telescope in the 24th solar-activity cycle. III. System of data acquisition and control of the solar spectral facility

We report the development of a multichannel data acquisition and control system for the Spectral and Polarization High-Resolution Solar Research System, installed at the RATAN-600 radio telescope. This facility provides high-speed registration of signals from 240 channels and controls the preparation for observations and the process of automatic observations. The hardware is made in the form factor of 3U Evromekhanika modules. The measurement facility is controlled by the software based on the QT cross-platform library (the open source version), which can be run both on Linux and Windows operating systems. The data are written to a magnetic carrier and then transferred to the computer network of the Special Astrophysical Observatory for archiving, and can be accessed by external users.     

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.     

Modeled soft X-ray solar irradiances

Solar soft X-rays have historically been inaccurately modeled in both relative variations and absolute magnitudes by empirical solar extreme ultraviolet (EUV) irradiance models. This is a result of the use of a limited number of rocket data sets which were primarily associated with the calibration of the AE-E satellite EUV data set. In this work, the EUV91 solar EUV irradiance model has been upgraded to improve the accuracy of the 3.0 to 5.0 nm relative irradiance variations. The absolute magnitude estimate of the flux in this wavelength range has also been revised upwards. The upgrade was accomplished by first digitizing the SOLRAD 11 satellite 4.4 to 6.0 nm measured energy flux data set, then extracting and extrapolating a derived 3.0 to 5.0 nm photon flux from these data, and finally by performing a correlation between these derived data and the daily and 81-day mean 10.7 cm radio flux emission using a multiple linear regression technique. A correlation coefficient of greater than 0.9 was obtained between the dependent and independent data sets. The derived and modeled 3.0 to 5.0 nm flux varies by more than an order of magnitude over a solar cycle, ranging from a flux below 1×10⁸ to a flux greater than 1×10⁹ photons cm^–2 s^–1. Solar rotational (27-day) variations in the flux magnitude are a factor of 2. The derived and modeled irradiance absolute values are an order of magnitude greater than previous values from rocket data sets related to the calibration of the AE-E satellite.     

DeepSun:machine-learning-as-a-service for solar flare prediction

Solar flare prediction plays an important role in understanding and forecasting space weather.The main goal of the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager(HMI), one of the instruments on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, is to study the origin of solar variability and characterize the Sun's magnetic activity.HMI provides continuous full-disk observations of the solar vector magnetic field with high cadence data that lead to reliable predictive capability; yet, solar flare prediction effort utilizing these data is still limited. In this paper, we present a machine-learning-as-a-service(MLaa S) framework, called Deep Sun,for predicting solar flares on the web based on HMI's data products. Specifically, we construct training data by utilizing the physical parameters provided by the Space-weather HMI Active Region Patch(SHARP)and categorize solar flares into four classes, namely B, C, M and X, according to the X-ray flare catalogs available at the National Centers for Environmental Information(NCEI). Thus, the solar flare prediction problem at hand is essentially a multi-class(i.e., four-class) classification problem. The Deep Sun system employs several machine learning algorithms to tackle this multi-class prediction problem and provides an application programming interface(API) for remote programming users. To our knowledge, Deep Sun is the first MLaa S tool capable of predicting solar flares through the internet.     

Coronal mass ejections of solar cycle 23

I summarize the statistical, physical, and morphological properties of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) of solar cycle 23, as observed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission. The SOHO data is by far the most extensive data, which made it possible to fully establish the properties of CMEs as a phenomenon of utmost importance to Sun-Earth connection as well as to the heliosphere. I also discuss various subsets of CMEs that are of primary importance for their impact on Earth.     

The reversal of the solar polar magnetic fields

Observations of the first large-scale patterns of magnetic fields near the sunspot minimum of 1986 (the start of cycle 22) are presented using synoptic magnetic data provided by the National Solar Observatory and contour maps constructed from data provided by the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory. The latter are compared with simulated contour maps derived from numerical solutions of the flux transport equation using data from particular Carrington rotations as initial conditions.The simulated evolutions of the large-scale magnetic fields are qualitatively consistent with observed evolutions, but differ in several significant respects. Some of the differences can be removed by varying the diffusivity and the parameters of the large-scale velocity fields. The remaining differences include: (i) the complexity of fine structure, (ii) the response to differential rotation, (iii) the evolution of decaying active regions, and (iv) the emergence of new elements in the weak, large-scale fields independent of the evolution of the observed active regions.It is concluded that the patterns of weak magnetic fields which comprise the large-scale features cannot be formed entirely by the diffusive decay of active regions. There must be a significant contribution to these patterns by non-random flux eruptions within the network structure, independent of active regions.     

On the longitudinal distribution of the solar surges

After re-examination of data presented by Verma (1984), some misuse of solar parameteres published in Solar Geophysical Data is presented. Consequently some conclusions made by Verma (1984, 1986) on about the longitudinal distribution of cool solar surges based on these misuses are discussed.     

Temporal variation of solar flare index during solar cycles 21–24

The present investigation attempts to quantify the temporal variation of Solar Flare Index(SFI)with other activity indices during solar cycles 21-24 by using different techniques such as linear regression,correlation,cross-correlation with phase lag-lead,etc.Different Solar Activity Indices(SAI)considered in this present study are Sunspot Number(SSN),10.7 cm Solar Radio Flux(F10.7),Coronal Index(CI)and MgⅡCore-to-Wing Ratio(MgⅡ).The maximum cycle amplitude of SFI and considered SAI has a decreasing trend from solar cycle 22,and cycle 24 is the weakest solar cycle among all other cycles.The SFI with SSN,F10.7,CI and MgⅡshows hysteresis during all cycles except for solar cycle 22 where both paths for ascending and descending phases are intercepting each other,thereby representing a phase reversal.A positive hysteresis circulation exists between SFI and considered SAI during solar cycles 22 and 23,whereas a negative circulation exists in cycles 21 and 24.SFI has a high positive correlation with coefficient values of 0.92,0.94,0.84 and 0.81 for SSN,F10.7,CI and MgⅡrespectively.According to crosscorrelation analysis,SFI has a phase lag with considered SAI during an odd-number solar cycle(solar cycles21 and 23)but no phase lag/lead during an even-numbered solar cycle(solar cycles 22 and 24).However,the entire smoothed monthly average SFI data indicate an in-phase relationship with SSN,F10.7 and MgⅡ,and a one-month phase lag with CI.The presence of those above characteristics strongly confirms the outcomes of different research work with various solar indices and the highest correlation exists between SFI and SSN as well as F10.7 which establishes that SFI may be considered as one of the prime activity indices to interpret the characteristics of the Sun’s active region as well as for more accurate short-range or long-range forecasting of solar events.     

Studies of solar magnetic fields

Solar Physics - The telescope, spectrograph, and magnetograph at the 150-ft Tower Telescope are described, and a chronology of changes in the instrumentation is given. The average magnetic field...     

Behavior of transition-region lines during impulsive solar flares

We describe briefly the Ultraviolet Spectrometer and Polarimeter on the Solar Maximum Mission and discuss data pertaining to the emissions observed in lines originating in the transition-region plasma, particularly during impulsive flares. The data pertain to lines from the following ions: SiII, CIV, OIV, SiIV, OV, and FeXXI.     

A catalogue of high-speed plasma streams in the solar wind

A catalogue of 346 well defined high-speed plasma streams detected in solar wind observations 1964–75 is presented. The data base for the study is the compilation of interplanetary plasma/magnetic field data prepared by J. King. It is believed that the catalogue may be found useful for studies of various solar-interplanetary and solar-terrestrial phenomena.Proceedings of the 14th ESLAB Symposium on Physics of Solar Variations, 16–19 September 1980, Scheveningen, The Netherlands.     

Resonant structures in the solar system

The resonance theory is discussed with respect to the Solar System with a view to show that every triad of successive planets in the Solar System follows Laplace's resonance relation. With rings now known to exist around three of the four major planets, scientists have begun to speculate about the possible existence of ring structure and one or two small planets going around the Sun itself. It is also believed that the ring systems may exist around the planets Neptune and Mars. In this paper an attempt is made to provide a basis to these beliefs using Laplace's resonance relation. The triads of successive innermost objects (rings and/or satellites) in the satellite — systems of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus are also shown to follow Laplace's resonance relation.     

Feature extraction from solar images using wavelet transform: image cleaning for applications to solar astrolabe experiment

Good edge extraction from temporal series of solar images is fundamental in the solar astrolabe experiment. Noise and spots in images cause however, difficulties to extract an accurate solar edge. We present in this paper a new image-processing method which solves this problem and thus improves the characteristics of the solar astrolabe experiment. The method is based upon the use of wavelet transform in the solar image analysis. It is developed to remove image defects (parasite spots) and noise without reducing image resolution. Solar images obtained at Calern Observatory astrolabe (France) are then processed using this method. Solar edges of these images are extracted and trajectories reconstructed.