OBJECTIVE: Download SOLSTICE data and begin reading and plotting solar spectrum/irradiance
REPORT: Working with SOLSTICE data was a loop of confusion but it ended up being OK. I first started by using an older format of SOLSTICE data that required debugging an IDL program written almost twenty years ago! After no success being able to unpack the data Suman pointed me to a better way to get the data through LISIRD or the LASP Interactive Solar Radiance Datacenter. I was able to get a .csv version, convert to text file and then use with IDL fairly easily. From there I was able to create/run a simple program that would find the sum of the wavelength band (from 119 to 420nm) - then plot the spectral irradiance spectrum (as a function of wavelength and irradiance), while also noting the C IV emission line at 1548 Angstroms. Though the plots belows look very similar I assure you they are spectrums from three different dates!
