IRIS Data Products -- Almost

I was about to release my first set of IRIS data products and realized that I need to add a bit more data to the final product, AND most importantly I need to write up a document describing how I created the product.

I'm very excited about getting this data out, but it'll take a little more time to get it out.  The cool thing about being an independent researcher is that I can make my own timeline.  This way I can be satisfied with what I do rather than trying to finish on a schedule with only decent results.

Anyhow, here's a sample of the current data product:

20 -145.7258 2803.3411 7178.8491 2803.5112 4874.6631 2803.6743 6886.1235
21 -145.3931 2803.3596 6523.7871 2803.5061 4834.3359 2803.7090 6792.2446
22 -145.0604 2803.3843 7062.9453 2803.5510 5101.1875 2803.5935 5201.3462
23 -144.7277 2803.3965 7286.9478 2803.6162 4424.9214 2803.7390 5431.4185
24 -144.3950 2803.3757 7256.7803 2803.5818 4509.8062 2803.7209 5524.3799
25 -144.0623 2803.3625 7086.9365 2803.5273 3827.3635 2803.6963 5804.1982
26 -143.7296 2803.3557 7059.0205 2803.5303 3544.4858 2803.6841 5574.2578
27 -143.3969 2803.3569 6335.1782 2803.5208 3239.6372 2803.6741 4954.3608
28 -143.0642 2803.3591 5240.8706 2803.5232 2873.1086 2803.6799 4440.0874
29 -142.7315 2803.3716 4632.0991 2803.5444 2698.4321 2803.6804 3886.6016
30 -142.3988 2803.3906 4446.7124 2803.5581 2223.5918 2803.6794 3593.5039
31 -142.0661 2803.3838 4326.3809 2803.5452 1997.5411 2803.6750 3315.3245
32 -141.7334 2803.3789 4018.1577 2803.5532 2099.9224 2803.6716 3081.2000
33 -141.4007 2803.3850 3486.9858 2803.5474 2131.6660 2803.6533 2877.7717
34 -141.0680 2803.3813 2922.0916 2803.5286 1822.3867 2803.6533 2578.5029
35 -140.7353 2803.3828 2700.9463 2803.5337 1802.7117 2803.6450 2478.1128
36 -140.4026 2803.3909 2765.1562 2803.5225 1982.9794 2803.6292 2619.6548
37 -140.0699 2803.3962 2817.1248 2803.5288 2110.8174 2803.6179 2679.0667
38 -139.7372 2803.4019 2863.1106 2803.5273 2071.1104 2803.6245 2625.1670
39 -139.4045 2803.4031 3289.1108 2803.5190 2267.6670 2803.6216 2802.0623

The first column is the y-pixel location.  2nd column is the distance, in arc seconds, from the center of the sun along the y-axis of the image raster.  The next two columns is a pair: the first value (column 3) is the wavelength of the peak value of the MgII k 2v line, and the second value (column 4) is the intensity of that peak.  Columns 5 and 6, and 7 and 8 are the same, except they are for the MgII k 3 and MgII k 2r spectral features.

I need to add the distance from the center of the sun along the x-axis, and I need to add the UTC of the observation.  At the moment I'm only doing this for "sit-and-stare" data which means that the slit isn't scanning the image raster but is stationary.  I still need to work out how the scanning works as far as the data goes.  That'll come in a later version of the data product.

Here's a picture and a plot of the data that I'm working with:

Figure 1: The bright MgII h and k lines

Figure 2: A profile plot through the spectrum image above clearly showing the MgII h and k lines

IRIS is a NASA small explorer mission developed and operated by LMSAL with mission operations executed at NASA Ames Research center and major contributions to downlink communications funded by the Norwegian Space Center (NSC, Norway) through an ESA PRODEX contract.

Buttons

Nearly from day one that I owned my Roland Fantom X8, I've had trouble with the buttons.

I takes me a while to realize certain things, and this is an example.  Sit back for a short story:

When the first button went bad on my board, it was a button that was mounted on a small circuit board that was easy to replace -- and a mere $62.00.  Another two buttons on another circuit board failed.  I replaced that board for $160.00.  Yet another button failed on yet another circuit board and I replaced that for $140.00.  Then another button failed on the first circuit board -- the one that I had just replaced several months earlier.

So it finally dawned on me the other day that I might be able to just replace the buttons instead of the whole circuit boards.  I did a little online research and found that not only is this "button problem" a known problem, but most owners do just replace the buttons themselves.

So, with a soldering station set up, I went to work and replaced bad buttons with good ones.  A continuity test with a multi-meter confirms whether a button is working correctly or not.

Bang, bang, bang and I have a good-as-new circuit board with all the buttons working!

So now I hope to do this same thing with some other bad buttons I have on other circuit boards.  With all of the buttons replaced, I'll finally be able to get into actual sound synthesis.

Here's a picture of some of the bad buttons.  They're about 6mm wide.

Figure 1: Bad Buttons

First Look At IRIS Data

I've started a project to measure line positions, intensities, and ratios of the MgII h and k spectral lines coming from IRIS.  I've got a little way to go before I can start publishing these values, but here's a plot showing my progress:

Figure 1: MgII h spectral line spacial and temporal data

Now as you can see, it's a moderately complex plot.  The x-axis is the number of arc seconds from the center of the sun along the vertical axis of the sun.  The y-axis is the wavelength, in angstroms, of the spectral feature.

The data points themselves show at least three distinct features, all sort of in the center of the plot.  The three lines around 2803.5 angstroms are showing the position of the peak(s) and trough(s) in the MgII h line.  So as you move from left to right on the plot, you're moving from south to north on the surface of the sun.  As you move from bottom to top on the plot, you're looking at longer wavelengths.

The top "line" (follow the dots going from left to right) is it's peak position and is represented by the designation "h2r".  The middle "line" is "h3", and the bottom "line" is "h2v".  The line at the bottom of the plot is an artifact from the program I wrote to detect the peaks and troughs of the spectral features.

The red "lines" were data taken at about 16:33 UTC on 27 June 2014 and the green "lines" were taken about 5 minutes later at 16:38 UTC.  You can see that over that fairly short amount of time, the spectral features have changed pretty significantly.

Notice how the typical double peak goes away at -115 to -100.  Why?  It's looking at a sunspot at that location.  Why do these spectral features vanish when looking at a sunspot?

That's all I can say about this for now.  Much more to do to make this data presentable and usable to the astronomical community.

The Evryscope Sky Survey System

In this Apogee podcast, Cosmic discusses purpose of sky survey telescopes, and details the work of one such system under development.

365 Days Of Astronomy Podcast

Spinning Wheel

It's been a long while since I've recorded.  Not that I didn't want to or have any inspiration.  Nope.  A simple explaination: I have no way of recording.  My laptop died a few months ago and since then I've had to go without.  Luckily I was able to trade some of my time (my wealth is my time) for some computers that were being replaced.  Loaded audacity onto it and off I went with this first song.

I recorded most of it a couple weeks ago, but I knew at the time that there was something missing.  Today I listened again and realized that it needed a serious bottom.  Once that was complete, I had a song that could be put out.

Hope you enjoy.

Spinning Wheel

Peace, CL

Fibonacci On Mars

I look at Mars images from HiRise and Curiosity pretty much every day.  I was scanning a HiRise image the other day, and saw this:

I loaded the image into gimp and enhanced it a little bit:

The original image is here.

IRIS Eyes The Sun

IRIS Eyes the Sun