Solar Images from Space

[symmetal]

The GOES-R weather satellites also have a SUVI (Solar UltraViolet Imager) sensor. They transmit solar images every 4 minutes using 6 Extreme UV filters and NASA posts them to download around a day or so later after processing. The L2 (level 2) are the best to use as they are HDR composites of short and long exposures. The sensor is 1280 x 1280 pixels. and the images appear to be rotated, leading to blank triangles on the image corners though these may be calibration features.

The SUVI images are fits files, encoded as 32 bit floating point, so many programs that work with 16 bit integer fits files won't load them. Fits Liberator will though and you can save them as 16 bit tif files, as long as you move the histogram sliders to their end limits to avoid clipping data beforehand.

Here's the extent of the prom that erupted on 20 Apr after stretching and colouring using PS. I used the colour NASA associates with each specific filter, red is used for 304 angstroms. This wavelength shows proms and CME the best.

I'll post some of the other filters later. 🙂

Alan

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by symmetal

[symmetal]

Here's two more from the same time, with different filters, showing different structures. These are actually from Goes 18 but I forgot to edit the captions.

Alan

Edited April 30, 2023 by symmetal

[niallk]

Nice one!  By chance I caught it visually with my LS50DS on Apr 20th - saw beautiful detail evolve as mass was ejected.