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Solar Images

  November of 2004, selected .fts images of the Sun taken by Big Bear Observatory.

In general, .fts images of the Sun, to download and process with HOU-IP software. 

SOHO http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

  1. Tracking sunspots lesson plan including an overlay grid, etc. go to Classroom, then Sun Fun Activities, Tracking Sunspots.

  2. Gif of today's Sun with sunspots labeled. http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/synoptic/sunspots/mdi_sunspots.gif

  3. To see the sunspots for recent dates, scroll down to the end of this page and click on each gif: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/synoptic/sunspots/

National Solar Observatory http://www.nso.edu/

Space Weather http://www.spaceweather.com/

 Big Bear Solar Observatory http://www.bbso.njit.edu/

Sets of fts images ready for HOU-IP (flipped vertically, centered, and cropped). 
October 24,25,26,27,28, 2003 fts images.
Perihelion-Aphelion 2003 fts images.  See also these tables: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.html
H-Alpha Images (Look for flares along the edges.)

HOU Teachers, you can download current .fts images of the Sun from Big Bear Solar Observatory, FTP Archive. 

  1. Go to the Big Bear Solar Observatory Site. http://www.bbso.njit.edu/

  2. Find the FTPArchives section. ftp://ftp.bbso.njit.edu/pub/

  3. Select Archive.  ftp://ftp.bbso.njit.edu/pub/archive/

  4. Select the year, month, and date of interest. For Example October 26, 2003. ftp://ftp.bbso.njit.edu/pub/archive/2003/10/26/

  5. View the files as a list with details.  That way you know the size of the files and the full name.  The files are compressed with gzip. You will need a utility to un-gzip them. See the next section of this page.

  6. Flip the images vertically when you view in HOU-IP.  After flipping vertically, North is up and East is left.  (HOU software flips images unconventionally.  That is why you flip these vertically when you open them.) 

  GZIP

  1. Unzipping the Gzipped files seems to be the trickiest part of this process. You will have to un-gzip the files.

  2. If you do not have a utility for this go to http://www.simtel.net/product.php?url_fb_product_page=63053 to download the Wing-GZ utility

  3. or to http://www.gzip.org/. Select executables to download the right program for your system. http://www.gzip.org/#exe. 

Astronomical and Space Calendar calSKY

  1. Go to http://www.calsky.com/  This is a wonderful Astronomical Calendar.  Click on Intro to personalize this site.

  2. To see where where the sunspots are aligned on the solar sphere with a grid overlay, go to the Sun, apparent view, click on grid, then GO. You can choose the date and time to be shown.

Back to HOU Home.  Back to Explorations.

Funded by NSF through Hands-On Universe (HOU), NASA through NASA IDEAS and SOFIA and NASA's Saturday Academy for Space Science at Chicago State University.  Comments, suggestions, questions?  Contact Vivian Hoette vhoette@yerkes.uchicago.edu.