July 16 - 17

This week I continuted working on the spectral analysis for the 15 events. There are 3 programs I need to use for the analysis: hsi_spectrum_script, lbk_cleanspec_werr, and plot_clean_spec. I changed the hsi_spectrum_script so that you didn't need to go into the program to make changes anymore. Instsead, I made the flare start and end times an input so it could be more efficiently done in the command line. Then I processed all the images using hsi_spectrum_script using 20 second intervals. Afterwards, for the lbk_cleanspec_werr program, I had trouble figuring out the values for bg1 and bg2 for each event. Dr. Zhu was able to help me figure out how to find the time intervals, since Dr. Qiu is away this week. I got all the time intervals for each of the 15 events and ran lbk_cleanspec_werr to get the fitted_spectrum_werr.sav files.

July 18 - 20

I plodded along with the spectral analysis. I was able to get the best-fit lines against the subtracted spectra for 13 events. The other events were plotting the subtracted spectras but without the best-fit line, even though I tried many different time frames. I double checked that I hadn't tried to integrate the times during the attenuator changes and made some changes accordingly to the time intervals I used. In addition, Dr. Qiu said I could start trying to make graphs that plot the reconnection rate, lightcurve, spectral index, and counts of a an event. I used the code lbk_plotresults.pro and had to download an extra program called hlp.pro for it to work. I commmented out the centroid analysis section. Then using the x and y ranges as well as the time range from the SDO images, I I made the plots. 11 events turned out alright. I am planning to tinkering around with the events that did not work and seeing if there's something I'm missing in working on them.

Weekend:

On Friday for dinner, Nicole, Phillip, and I went to Whistle Pig. We each customized our own bibimbap. Then on Saturday, Nicole and I got brunch at "jam!" and it was actually amazing. The wait time (45 minutes) was definitely worth it. In the afternoon Nicole, Phillip, Michael, and I went to the Lewis & Clark caverns. Fun fact: Lewis and Clark never actually went into the caverns; the caverns are just randomly named that! Either way, the 2 hour tour was great because inside the caves the temperature was pleasantly cool. A highlight of the tour were the cathedral room, which had colored lights illuminating the structures in the cave and gave everything an eery but also Disney-like quality. It kind of felt like I was underwater in something out of The Little Mermaid. Another highlight was going down the Beaver slide!

On Sunday, a bunch of REU students and some mentors went whitewater rafting. This was the third time I've been whitewater rafting this summer, but this was definitely the most fun I've had on a trip! The weather was absolutely perfect--sunny and cloudless, with a slight breeze carrying us down Yankee Jim's canyon. We had squirt guns and had a water fight with the other raft. I also rode the bull until someone hit me with the squirt gun and I fell backwards. It was awesome.