I want to learn how to observe the sun using soho images how do i do it?

Question

I want to learn how to observe the sun using soho images.
Find out how to report happening on the sun and fill out reports
Email and see what gets sent back
Figure out when the next solar flare is coming and watch for it and report it.

Look at the data and figure out a solar storm is coming and report it and then as it happens watch for it on google news .
Learn what the sun looks like just before a solar flare happens and try to predict it .

I heard there are webpages on how to do that ..where are they?
I've tried all kinds of words but need some help searching .
I put in observing the sun online and it comes up with observing it with a telescope, i rather do it online.

HELP !!

Answer 1

I've worked with SOHO images. You're going to need some sort of image analysis software. Most SOHO astronomers use IDL, but it's not free. If you have access to a university, their astro dept should have a license. If not, you're going to find it more difficult.

You can download SOHO images for free from their website - look for the archive.

I don't know what you mean by 'fill out reports' - that wasn't part of my research. For the most part, they didn't care what individual astronomers were doing with the data, unless you were working on their analysis team.

Figuring out when flares will happen isn't easy - there are many professional astronomers trying to figure out how to predict flares, but aside from the solar cycle, they are pretty unpredictable at the moment.

A flare will result in a solar storm at the Earth a few hours to days later, depending on how fast the material is travelling. I think I got that info from the GOES satellites. You might want to check them out too.

Link to the data archive is below. You'll probably be interested in EIT data, to start with - those are images taken in the UV. The second link is to what the data from the different instruments look like.

The data will probably come in .fits format, which you'll need a special program to open. It's called ds9, and it's free to download, but not very stable on windows, I'm afraid. But it will work.

Have fun!

Answer 2

Try a google search for

real time online observations of the sun

You will find this link (among others):

http://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/events/monitor/

That page should get you started and give you far more information than you probably can use!

HTH

Charles

Answer 3

You could try looking up 'Pic du Midi' website.
French observatory-they're into SOHO.

Answer 4

I predict you will know what the sun will do before the sun knows.