WEEK ONE





June 1, 2009


Today was the start of a new adventure of my ten week internship exploring solar physics. It all started with an initial ice breaker between my fellow REU colleagues and their mentors; shortly after we started learning the basic syntax of UNIX and IDL which was very useful.  Then I was able to sit down with my mentor, Angela Des Jardins, to start preparing me for my summer project.  I will examine  X-ray spectrum of a class  X-1 flare that took place on February 26, 2004 at approximately 0200 UT. After completing a productive day we were all invited to Mixer so we can meet other REU students from other programs and local students.  It was a very successful day filled with new knowledge and acquaintances.
















June 2,2009


For the first week, I’m learning IDL that will help me with my project. This will become my introduction to my day for the rest of the week. I also embarked on gaining knowledge to create my own web page that will be my online science journal. I haven’t had the experience to work with html but now I have the opportunity which is electrifying. I met with Angela and she introduced me to RHESSI Data Analyzer on IDL.  This data analyzer is going to help me create images and light curves that will help me understand the flare I'm studying. According to Angela, this particular flare has some unusual properties, which may be a
‘super-hot thermal loop top source’ or super hot thermal component (SHTC).












June 3, 2009


I have a better grasp on IDL and my project after meeting with Angela.
I learned that I will be trying to understand the topology of the magnetic reconnection by using the magnetic charge topology (MCT) model, the X-ray structure through the location of the SHTC by using imaging spectroscopy.   I'm  also becoming familiar with solar flare terminology and after playing with RHESSI Data Analyzer, I created a light curve that was produced
by a class X-1flare from February 24, 2004.





















June 4, 2009


I started reading Solar Astrophysics by Peter V Foukal in the attempt to understand force free magnetic fields but became side tract and read about the chromosphere instead. I spent the rest of the day working on my IDL project that was given to me by my mentor. 
The mini project includes writing a script:

- creates an image with contours of a different data type as an overlay
- sends this image to the screen
- also writes a postscript file (suitable for printing) and a jpeg 

By the end of the day I was successful.







June 5, 2009


I gave my IDL presentation, which was an overlay of the X-ray flux over a magnetogram.  It was a success because my mini program was able to run and produce an image for the group. Afterwards I continued to research how to use html and discovered how to place an anchor in my html script.
An anchor allows you to use a link on the top of the page that will
direct you to another spot further down the page.

The anchor in html script :

<H1>Table of Contents</H1>
<P><A href="#section1">Introduction</A><BR>
<A href="#section2">Some background</A><BR>
<A href="#section2.1">On a more personal note</A><BR>
...the rest of the table of contents...
   

...the document body...
<H2><A name="section1">Introduction</A></H2>
...section 1...
<H2><A name="section2">Some background</A></H2>
...section 2...
<H3><A name="section2.1">On a more personal note</A></H3>
...section 2.1...

<A href="#section1"> this allows you to define the anchor and </A> is where the anchor ends
<A name="section1"> this tells the anchor where to go further down the page


Later on in the day I had my first Solar Flare meeting with Dr. Jiong Qui, Dr. Dana Loncope and my mentor, Angela Des Jardins. The meeting gave me the opportunity to tell the group what I accomplished during the week and ask questions that I didn’t fully understand.