Multi-site Observations of the March 2016 Total Solar Eclipse: Calibration of Images to Simulate Continuous Monitoring
Abstract
During the total solar eclipse of March 9, 2016, five teams of astronomers participating in the Citizen Continental America Telescopic Eclipse (CATE) experiment, traveled to different locations in Indonesia to observe the eclipse. Data was acquired to continuously monitor the progression of features in the inner solar corona: a region of the solar atmosphere where time evolution is not well understood. Image data from the eclipse consisted of sets of 7 exposure times 0.4, 1.3, 4, 13, 40, 130, and 400 milliseconds which are used to create a high dynamic range composite image. Eclipse data from these sites were then processed and calibrated using sets of dark and flat images. Further data processing included the compilation of exposures into high dynamic range images and were subsequently spatially filtered. Using these processing techniques, data from each site was aligned and compiled as frames in videos of the eclipse, each consisting of over 140 frames with the goal of being combined. Lessons learned from the data obtained in the observations of the 2016 total solar eclipse are being used to improve the procedure which will be used in the CATE experiment during the North American 2017 total solar eclipse.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #229
- Pub Date:
- January 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AAS...22942401B