Helioviewer services to be suspended due to Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy is currently approaching the East Coast of the United States. Winds from the hurricane are expected to cause widespread power outages in the next 48 hours (Oct 29-30). Since an unplanned power outage to a server can cause severe damage, we are taking the precautionary measure of shutting down the Helioviewer server. The server will shut down in the next hour. We expect to be back online by Wednesday 31st October EST at the latest, contingent on the weather and the availability of power. We apologize for the inconvenience this will cause.
Helioviewer.org and JHelioviewer Back Online
Helioviewer.org and JHelioviewer are both back online after last week’s outage.
The downtime was caused by a problem encountered while expanding our storage capacity, which has since been fixed.
We are currently in the process of restoring images from some earlier years and as a result certain images may not be accessible over the next couple days.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Technical difficulties with image availability beginning October 16
You may have noticed that we currently do not have any images available, even although the website is up and running. This is because we are experiencing some technical difficulties upgrading our image capacity. We are diagnosing the problem at present, and we will make images available as soon as we possibly can. We apologize for the interruption to our services.
Planned Helioviewer Outage Beginning 25 September, 21:00 UT
All Helioviewer Project services will be brought down beginning at approximately 21:00 UT on 25th September 2012. This is a planned outage, and is required to perform necessary maintenance. Helioviewer.org and the JHelioviewer server at the Goddard Spaceflight Center will be unavailable. Helioviewer Project images used by third party applications will also be unavailable. We expect to return to normal service at approximateky 13:00 UT on 26th September 2012. We apologize for this necessary but brief interruption in our services.
Coding Opportunities for Students: JHelioviewer and SunPy join ESA’s Summer of Code in Space
Posted by Daniel Müller in Development, General, JHelioviewer, News on July 19, 2012
ESA Summer of Code in Space 2012 (SOCIS) is a program run by the European Space Agency. It offers student developers stipends to write code for various space-related open source software projects. Through SOCIS, students will be paired with mentors from participating project teams, thus gaining exposure to real-world software development. The program is inspired by (but not affiliated or related in any way to) Google’s Summer of Code initiative.
JHelioviewer, in collaboration with the start-up company Luxunda, and SunPy have been selected as mentoring organizations, and students are encouraged to apply until 27 July 2012 (11 am UTC).
User highlight: Comet 96P/Machholz returns
Posted by jack in General, LASCO, User Highlights on July 12, 2012
YouTube and Helioviewer.org user otraLoly shared this short video of the return of Comet 96P/Machholz to the LASCO-C3 field of view. Thanks for sharing your video! More images of the comet will be available soon on Helioviewer.org.
The small, tadpole-like extended feature approximately in the center of the field of view in the image below is Comet 96P/Machholz.
Comet 96P/Machholz has an orbital period of about 5.2 years, which means it has been seen before in LASCO observations. Here is an example image from 2007
and five years before that in 2002,
The dates for the entry of Comet 96P/Machholz were obtained from the transit page of the LASCO instrument. It is projected to be visible in the LASCO C3 field of view from July 12 – 17, and it may also be visible in the images from the STEREO A/B coronagraphs.
Temporary delay in new AIA and HMI images
SDO AIA and HMI images are currently lagging behing real time by about 18 – 22 hours. This is due to some necessary hardware upgrades in the processing pipeline that have interrupted the flow of images. The availability of LASCO, EIT, COR1, COR2, EUVI and SWAP images is unaffected by these hardware upgrades. We expect that the lag in SDO AIA and HMI images compared to real time will be caught up in the next few hours. We apologize for the interruption in availability of near real time AIA and HMI images.
Fermi Detects Gamma Rays from a Solar Flare
Sometimes, instruments that are not specifically designed to observe the Sun can see something from the Sun. This was the case with Fermi, a gamma ray telescope operated by NASA. Its primary mission is to study the most energetic features and events in the Universe, such as supermassive black holes and the merging of neutron stars. Sometimes, however, the Sun makes an appearance in Fermi data. The following GOES X-class flare on March 7th, 2012
was an intense source of gamma-rays. SDO-AIA is not designed to observe gamma-rays. However, Fermi saw the gamma rays from this event. For a great explanation of what Fermi saw from the Sun, check out the following video.
SWAP movie of the transit of Venus
The movie below shows the PROBA2-SWAP view of the transit so far:
Venus appears to swing north and south in this movie – this was predicted by the operators of SWAP at the Royal Observatory of Belgium Solar Data Influences Center. It is caused by the orbit of the PROBA2 spacecraft around the Earth creating very different points of view of at different times in the orbit.
More movies to come!
Helioviewer discussion forum is now online!
Posted by keith in General, Helioviewer.org, JHelioviewer on June 6, 2012
Alongside of our coverage of the last Transit of Venus that most of us will get to see (the next one will be in 2117 for those of you who are particularly ambitious!) we are also launching a new online discussion forum: community.helioviewer.org.
Here, users can share interesting features and events they find and get help identifying solar phenomena. In addition to forums on topics such as “transits and eclipses” to “coronal mass ejections,” we also have other sections including “solar physics” and “heliophysics” for anyone interested in learning more about the science that goes on behind the pretty pictures and movies.
Check it out and let us know what you think!