Solar Soft X-ray Irradiance with Hinode/XRT


Shannon Boland (University of Wyoming) and Aki Takeda
as a MSU solar/space REU 2022 project.

Project descriptions

Montana State University (MSU) is home of Hinode/XRT Synoptic Composite Image Archive ( SCIA ), which is the archive of soft X-ray full-Sun images obtained with the X-Ray Telescope aboard the Hinode satellite. Our images are posted daily to the SolarMonitor, a popular site for solar researchers to check the current solar condition.

With this archive, we can study solar activities in terms of the Sun's radiation in soft X-ray wavelengths. In this project, we will process the XRT/SCIA images taken from 2006 to present to derive the soft X-ray irradiance during this period. We will learn how to process Hinode/XRT FITS data for quantitative analysis using the data analysis software IDL(Interactive Data Language): data selection, derivation of temperature and emission measure, calculation of the XRT irradiance in the physical unit (W/m^2), etc. This project is continued from 2021. This year, we will put emphasis on the data calibration to correct characteristic change of the instrument over 15 years of operation, and comparison with the observations by other instruments measuring the solar cycle variation.

As a bonus, the student will have a few opportunities to watch and learn how an international satellite project like Hinode is operated. As one of US institutes participating the Hinode satellite operation, we have a duty week in July, in which we take control of the XRT observation.

Weekly goals


Resources

just a memo for the 6/9 meeting

CCD detecter (Charge Coupled Device)
photoelectric effect
how CCD works

memo for the 6/13 meeting

memo for the 6/20 meeting

Chianti atomic database :

memo for the 6/30 meeting

X-ray radiation from coronal plasma coronal emission mechanisms
sample X-ray spectrum

Solar X-ray radiation affecting to Earth

Google drawing by Shannon

XRT response and filter ratio function corrected plots


[note: plots created by xrt_resp/get_fratio_amtb2.pro]

note for the 7/11 meeting

note for 7/12 meeting

Planning the special observation with XRT for this project. This XOB (final form) was scheduled to run on 2022/07/16 .
      Date & Time   Tracking  Offset-X Offset-Y */
         (UT)       Curve No.  (deg)    (deg)   */
2022/07/16 03:45:00    0     -00.1472  00.1472  /*  -530.0/  530.0 : # XRT high coronal structures. */
2022/07/16 04:00:00    0      00.0000  00.0000  /*     0.0/    0.0 : synoptic, shifted  23.5 min + HOP 349 */
The stray light image at the same pointing was also obtained on 2022/07/19 using XOB#1CDC .

note for 7/15 meeting

Examples of Abstract




Aki Takeda (Research Scientist, Dept. of Physics at MSU)