Stray-light restoration of full-disk CaII K solar observations: a case study

Criscuoli

Uitenbroek

et al. 2010

A&A

Self Cite

Context. The intensity of the Ca II K resonance line observed with spectrographs and Lyot-type filters has long served as a diagnostic of the solar chromosphere. However, the literature contains a relative lack of photometric measurements of solar features observed at this spectral range. Aims. We study the radiative emission of various types of solar features, such as quiet Sun, enhanced network, plage, and bright plage regions, identified on filtergrams taken in the Ca II K line. Methods. We analysed full-disk images obtained with the PSPT, by using three interference filters that sample the Ca II K line with different bandpasses. We studied the dependence of the radiative emission of disk features on the filter bandpass. We also performed a non-local thermal equilibrium (NLTE) spectral synthesis of the Ca II K line integrated over the bandpass of PSPT filters. The synthesis was carried out by utilizing the partial frequency redistribution (PRD) with the most recent set of semi-empirical atmosphere models in the literature and some earlier atmosphere models. As the studied models were computed by assuming the complete redistribution formalism (CRD), we also performed simulations with this approximation for comparison. Results. We measured the center-to-limb variation of intensity values for various solar features identified on PSPT images and compared the results obtained with those derived from the synthesis. We find that CRD calculations derived using the most recent quiet Sun model, on average, reproduce the measured values of the quiet Sun regions slightly more accurately than PRD computations with the same model. This may reflect that the utilized atmospheric model was computed assuming CRD. Calculations with PRD on earlier quiet Sun model atmospheres reproduce measured quantities with a similar accuracy as to that achieved here by applying CRD to the recent model. We also find that the median contrast values measured for most of the identified bright features, disk positions, and filter bandpasses are, on average, a factor ≈1.9 lower than those derived from PRD simulations performed using the recent bright feature models. The discrepancy between measured and modeled values decreases by ≈12% after taking into account straylight effects on PSPT images. When moving towards the limb, PRD computations display closer agreement with the data than performed in CRD. Moreover, PRD computations on either the most recent or the earlier atmosphere models of bright features reproduce measurements from plage and bright plage regions with a similar accuracy.

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 93%

supporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 71%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Radiative emission of solar features in the Ca II K line: comparison of measurements and models

Criscuoli

Uitenbroek

et al. 2010

A&A

Self Cite

“…Meanwhile, other studies have been carried out that analyze some series presented here (Ermolli et al , 2009Criscuoli & Ermolli 2008;Foukal et al 2009;Tlatov et al 2009). The discussion of results obtained by all these studies will be presented in a forthcoming paper.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

COMPARISON AMONG Ca II K SPECTROHELIOGRAM TIME SERIES WITH AN APPLICATION TO SOLAR ACTIVITY STUDIES

Solanki

Tlatov

et al. 2009

ApJ

Self Cite

103

Various observatories around the globe started regular full-disk imaging of the solar atmosphere in the Ca ii K line in the early decades of the 20th century. The archives made by these observations have the potential of providing far more detailed information on solar magnetism than just the sunspot number and area records to which most studies of solar activity and irradiance changes are restricted. We evaluate the image quality and contents of three Ca ii K spectroheliogram time series, specifically those obtained by the digitization of the Arcetri, Kodaikanal, and Mt Wilson photographic archives, in order to estimate their value for studies focusing on timescales longer than the solar cycle. We analyze the quality of these data and compare the results obtained with those achieved for similar present-day observations taken with the Meudon spectroheliograph and with the Rome-PSPT. We also investigate whether image-segmentation techniques, such as those developed for identification of plage regions on present-day Ca ii K observations, can be used to process historic series. We show that historic data suffer from stronger geometrical distortions and photometric uncertainties than similar presentday observations. The latter uncertainties mostly originate from the photographic calibration of the original data and from stray-light effects. We also show that the image contents of the three analyzed series vary in time. These variations are probably due to instrument changes and aging of the spectrographs used, as well as changes of the observing programs. The segmentation technique tested in this study gives reasonably consistent results for the three analyzed series after application of a simple photographic calibration. Although the plage areas measured from the three analyzed series differ somewhat, the difference to previously published results is larger.

“…The Rome/PSPT data were deconvolved by using analytical functions defined from modelling the centre-to-limb variation of intensity in the data and instrumental PSF (Criscuoli & Ermolli 2008). The PSF here is modelled as the sum of three Gaussian and one Lorentzian functions, following Walton & Preminger (1999).…”

Section: Stray-light Removalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recovering the unsigned photospheric magnetic field from Ca II K observations

Chatzistergos

Solanki

et al. 2019

A&A

Context.A number of studies have aimed at defining the exact form of the relation between magnetic field strength and Ca II H and K core brightness. All previous studies have, however, been restricted to isolated regions on the solar disc or to a limited set of observations. Aims. We reassess the relationship between the photospheric magnetic field strength and the Ca II K intensity for a variety of surface features as a function of the position on the disc and the solar activity level. This relationship can be used to recover the unsigned photospheric magnetic field from images recorded in the core of Ca II K line. Methods. We have analysed 131 pairs of high-quality, full-disc, near-co-temporal observations from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (SDO/HMI) and Precision Solar Photometric Telescope (Rome/PSPT) spanning half a solar cycle. To analytically describe the observationally-determined relation, we considered three different functions: a power law with an offset, a logarithmic function, and a power law function of the logarithm of the magnetic flux density. We used the obtained relations to reconstruct maps of the line-of-sight component of the unsigned magnetic field (unsigned magnetograms) from Ca II K observations, which were then compared to the original magnetograms. Results. We find that both power-law functions represent the data well, while the logarithmic function is good only for quiet periods. We see no significant variation over the solar cycle or over the disc in the derived fit parameters, independently of the function used. We find that errors in the independent variable, usually not accounted for, introduce attenuation bias. To address this, we binned the data with respect to the magnetic field strength and Ca II K contrast separately and derived the relation for the bisector of the two binned curves. The reconstructed unsigned magnetograms show good agreement with the original ones. RMS differences are less than 90 G. The results were unaffected by the stray-light correction of the SDO/HMI and Rome/PSPT data. Conclusions. Our results imply that Ca II K observations, accurately processed and calibrated, can be used to reconstruct unsigned magnetograms by using the relations derived in our study.