Introduction


            The aim of the project was to develop software on a IDL platform to study solar active regions. It has already been statically shown (Canfield et al.) that the presence of sigmoids on the sun's corona greatly increases the probability of eruptions. This technique to predict solar eruptions is based on the visual recognition of these sigmoids.

            It was the purpose of this project to apply more 'physics' to the science of predicting solar eruptions. One of the primary aims was to calculate total current in an active region and to hopefully observe some quantitative relationship between total current and frequency of eruption of these regions.

            The program written 'FIND_JZ_V2.pro', analysis's photo spherical vector magnetograms from the Haleakala Stokes polarimeter. For more information on the Stokes polarimeter with it high resolution echelle spectrometer coupled to the telescope by optical fibers and how the magnetograms are actually formed see 'The Haleakala Stokes Polarimeter'  by D.L. Mickey.  These magnetograms are stored in 20 image arrays with a Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) header.
 

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How to use the Program