No abstract

Extreme ultra-violet images of the corona contain information over a wide range of spatial scales, and different structures such as active regions, quiet Sun, and filament channels contain information at very different brightness regimes. Processing of these images is important to reveal information, often hidden within the data, without introducing artefacts or bias. It is also important that any process be computationally efficient, particularly given the fine spatial and temporal resolution of Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (AIA/SDO), and consideration of future higher resolution observations. A very efficient process is described here, which is based on localised normalising of the data at many different spatial scales. The method reveals information at the finest scales whilst maintaining enough of the larger-scale information to provide context. It also intrinsically flattens noisy regions and can reveal structure in off-limb regions out to the edge of the field of view. We also applied the method successfully to a white-light coronagraph observation.Electronic Supplementary MaterialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11207-014-0523-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Seven different models are applied to the same problem of simulating the Sun's coronal magnetic field during the solar eclipse on 2015 March 20. All of the models are non-potential, allowing for free magnetic energy, but the associated electric currents are developed in significantly different ways. This is not a direct comparison of the coronal modelling techniques, in that the different models also use different photospheric boundary conditions, reflecting the range of approaches currently used in the community. Despite the significant differences, the results show broad agreement in the overall magnetic topology. Among those models with significant volume currents in much of the corona, there is general agreement that the ratio of total to potential magnetic energy should be approximately 1.4. However, there are significant differences in the electric current distributions; while static extrapolations are best able to reproduce active regions, they are unable to recover sheared magnetic fields in filament channels using currently available vector magnetogram data. By contrast, time-evolving simulations can recover the filament channel fields at the expense of not matching the observed vector magnetic fields within active regions. We suggest that, at present, the best approach may be a hybrid model using static extrapolations but with additional energization informed by simplified evolution models. This is demonstrated by one of the models.

Using observations of the corona taken during the total solar eclipses of 2006 March 29 and 2008 August 1 in broadband white light and in narrow bandpass filters centered at Fe x 637.4 nm, Fe xi 789.2 nm, Fe xiii 1074.7 nm, and Fe xiv 530.3 nm, we show that prominences observed off the solar limb are enshrouded in hot plasmas within twisted magnetic structures. These shrouds, which are commonly referred to as cavities in the literature, are clearly distinct from the overlying arch-like structures that form the base of streamers. The existence of these hot shrouds had been predicted by model studies dating back to the early 1970s, with more recent studies implying their association with twisted magnetic flux ropes. The eclipse observations presented here, which cover a temperature range of 0.9 to 2 ×10 6 K, are the first to resolve the long-standing ambiguity associated with the temperature and magnetic structure of prominence cavities.