Thursday, November 10, 2005


Image: Hot Shots from SOHO. EIT 195 (Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope) image from a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) and Particle Storm on July 14, 2000.




Update to the Observatory Project



Today Sarah Lowe and I had a conference call with Steel Hill and George Dimitoglou from the SOHO project at the Goddard Flight Center in Maryland. As you remember, SOHO is the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, a sattelite launched Dec 1995 cooperatively run by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. SOHO houses several types of detection equipment and monitors the nearest variable star to earth, yes I mean the Sun. This data is collected both for research purposes and practical purposes such as keeping communications networks operational.

I presented the Observatory/Oculus proposal to Steel and George. I then requested help in developing a data feed from the sattelite to be able to project a near real time image of the Sun mediated through the satellite 24 hours per day for the length of the Zero One festival. My request had two specific points. (1) Does the SOHO lab receive data faster than the 4 hour periods published on the public website and (2) can I get a dedicated connection to this more frequent data so I can feed it into a software to control the projections.

(1)George informed me that the EIT 195 (Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope) reimages every 15 minutes. Thus this might be a reliable image to animate for the public.

(2)George and Steele directed us to screen saver software in the public side of the NASA/ESA. George said it might just have the animation techniques I am requesting available. The software already downloads the latest images from the website.

Additionally, George and Steele have promised support to the project in providing materials for public consumption.

1 comment:

  1. Play tested the screen savers on both PC and Mac: disappointing results for the most part. The images cycle through all the image platforms. You cannot select one sensor to focus on. Additionally, the updates are really spotty. Some images didn't update for days. The PC platform had many more features but still didn't perform as needed.

    George and Steele have said the Mac code is avialable, perhaps I can get some support from another CADRE student to hack the code to perform to my requirements.

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