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Old 01-11-2012, 09:04 PM
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alexch (Alex)
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Melbourne
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Framing for maximum corona coverage during TSE

Hi All,

In preparations for the solar eclipse I thought that knowing the solar corona shape on the day of the eclipse would be great for optimal framing with a rectangular sensor (DSLR) and a long lens/telescope.

After a bit of searching I found a very useful page by A. Takeda:
http://solar.physics.montana.edu/nug...08/010608.html

Since global coronal structures tend to have long life and often sustain a few rotations, the structures seen half solar rotation (about 13.6 days) before the eclipse on the eastern limb are likely to be seen on the western limb again on the eclipse day (and the west-side structures will appear as east-side structures).

I took the images from SOHO LASCO C2 and C3 coronagraphs and the AIA image for prominences from www.helioviewer.org, rotated them 7.25 degrees counter-clockwise to make the ecliptic North Pole Up and flipped horizontally to make it look like on the day of the eclipse (attached). I am not sure how many many prominences would make it to the eclipse; and the fluffy stuff on the left-hand side of the flipped image is from a CME (see this movie), which would not last. The streamers seem to be equally distributed, and I cannot make out a preferred framing option.

The URL for zoomable helioviewer image with the time set at 2012/11/01 06:16 UTC is: http://bit.ly/UjYnY5

Note: Helioviewer displays the images with the Solar North Pole Up and in order to match the ground view they need to be rotated 7.25 degrees counter-clockwise (inclination of the solar equator to the ecliptic). Images from NASA SOHO website are aligned with the Ecliptic North Pole Up since October 29th, 2010.

Checking it on the morning of the eclipse would be best but I am not sure how well 3G broadband will work there given the predicted number of visitors and hope this info is useful.

Cheers,
Alex
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Last edited by alexch; 01-11-2012 at 11:33 PM.
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