New XRT paper: "X-Raying the Dark Side of Venus - Scatter from Venus Magnetotail?" by Afshari, M., Peres, G., Jibben, P. R., Petralia, A., Reale, F., and Weber, M. was accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

2016 Jul 20:

XPOW: New Group of Active Regions

2016 Jul 20:

SOT POD: M1.6 Flare and Coronal Loops

2016 Jul 18:

SOT POD: Granules on the Photosphere

2016 Jul 11:

SOT POD: Prominence on the West Limb

2016 Jul 11:

SOT POD: Compilation of Flares in AR 11598

2016 Jul 06:

XPOW: On this day...

2016 Jul 05:

SOT POD: M3.5 Flare in AR 12403

2016 Jun 28:

XPOW: XRT Observes Source of CME

2016 Jun 28:

SOT POD: AR 12473 and Coronal Loop

2016 Jun 07:

XPOW: A Spot-Free Sun

2016 Jun 06:

SOT POD: Spicules on the Solar Limb

2016 May 24:

New XRT paper: "Global Sausage Oscillation of Solar Flare Loops Detected by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph" by Hui Tain, Peter R. Young, Katharine K. Reeves, Tongjiang Wang, Patrick Antolin, Bin Chen, and Jiansen He was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

2016 May 24:

XPOW: A Tiny Coronal Cavity

2016 May 17:

XPOW: Plasma Voids After a Solar Flare

2016 May 10:

SOT POD: 2016 Mercury Transit

2016 May 10:

XPOW: Mercury Steals the Show

2016 May 03:

XPOW: The Transit of Mercury

2016 May:

EIS Nugget: Mercury transit observed by Hinode/EIS

2016 Apr 26:

XPOW: Hot Loop Causes Heat Wave in the South

2016 Apr 20:

SOT POD: January 28th Solar Flare

2016 Apr 20:

XPOW: The Story of Hinode

2016 Apr 12:

SOT POD: Spicules on the Solar Limb

2016 Apr 12:

XPOW: A Coronal Cavity Gets a Chewy Nougat

2016 Apr 05:

XPOW: XRT joins GitHub!

2016 Mar 29:

XPOW: Lightning Strikes

2016 Apr 1:

Hinode-10 Science Meeting & SOLAR-C Science Meeting:

Date:

Hinode-10 Science Meeting, Sep 5-8, 2016
SOLAR-C Science Meeting, Sep 9, 2016

Venue:
Sakata & Hirata Hall (Science South Building), Nagoya University (Higashiyama Campus), Nagoya, Japan

Hinode-10 Science Meeting and SOLAR-C Science Meeting will be held at Nagoya University, Japan from September 5 through 9, 2016. In this meeting, the tenth anniversary of the launch of Hinode will be commemorated, and the great achievement of Hinode will be summarized. Also the advancement of solar physics in the decade to come will be discussed. The meeting is centered more on review talks than previous meetings, but nevertheless, we also encourage participants to present the newest research results as contributed talks. After the four-day Hinode meeting, a SOLAR-C meeting will be organized (participation open to everyone), in order to prepare for the mission proposal jointly planned by JAXA, NASA and ESA.

The website and the registration site of Hinode-10 Science Meeting & SOLAR-C Science Meeting is now open at http://hinode.stelab.nagoya-u.ac.jp/Hinode10/.

Important dates:
June 17: Deadline for abstract submission
June 17: Deadline for financial support (open on April 15)
July 31: Deadline for early-bird/online registration

2016 Mar 31:

IRIS/Hinode support for ALMA cycle 4 observations:

Coordination with ALMA observations of the Sun is high priority for both the IRIS and Hinode missions. IRIS and Hinode provide observations from the photosphere to the corona that are ideal complements to the chromospheric measurements with ALMA. During the upcoming ALMA cycle 4 solar observations from December 2016 to April 2017, IRIS and Hinode will prioritize support of successful ALMA cycle 4 solar observing proposals. Proposers to the ALMA cycle 4 can refer to this message as evidence of IRIS/Hinode support for their observations.

We suggest that PIs of accepted ALMA proposals inform the Hinode and IRIS teams as soon as possible of the desired observational support -- our teams will be happy to collaborate with you to tailor the coordinated observations to your science goals. We suggest that successful ALMA proposers submit a request for an IHOP (IRIS-Hinode Operations Plan), see http://hinode.msfc.nasa.gov/hops.html#requirements for details. Please use the Submission Form.

Please keep in mind that while IRIS is in eclipse season from early November through mid February, during this time frame IRIS will nevertheless be able to provide high quality observations for about 60 minutes out of every orbit (97 minutes). To maximize overlap with IRIS, requesting at least 1.5 hours of ALMA observations is the best option. IRIS has no limitations for ALMA support from mid February onwards.

As the observation date nears, close communication on the timings and pointings of the ALMA observations will be required in order to allow Hinode and IRIS to coordinate successfully.

If you have questions about support for ALMA observations, please contact Sabrina Savage for Hinode (sabrina dot savage at nasa dot gov) and Bart De Pontieu for IRIS (bdp at lmsal dot com).

2016 Mar 29:

Hinode Solar Optical Telescope Filtergraph Anomaly:

The Hinode Solar Optical Telescope Focal Plane Package contains three CCD cameras: Filtergraph (FG), Spectro-polarimeter (SP) and Correlation Tracker (CT). The FG camera suddenly developed an electrical short circuit on 2016 February 25, after 9.4 years of operation on-orbit, and it was promptly switched off. The other two cameras are unaffected, and science observing resumed with the SP and CT on March 3rd. The FG camera collects both broadband and narrowband images, so neither type has been available since Feb 25th. Engineers at Lockheed Martin have been studying the cause and possible recovery of the FG camera since the anomaly occurred. A similar short circuit in the CCD camera on the GOES-15 Soft X-ray Imager was recovered in 2010, with nominal operation of the instrument since then. Recovery of the FG camera may be attempted in the next month or so, but the likelihood of success is not known. We are proceeding cautiously, since all three cameras share the same power supplies, and we do not want risk damage to the SP or CT.

In the meantime, Hinode and SOT continue a full schedule of observing, including Hinode Observing Programs (HOPs) and frequent coordination with IRIS and other observatories. The telemetry previously used by the FG has been allocated amongst SP and the other two Hinode instruments, resulting in large increases for EIS and XRT, especially when observing targets at the limb. The added telemetry for SP enables collection of more fast time series and full-resolution maps of the photospheric vector magnetic field and other atmospheric properties. Revised observing strategies and programs using only SP are being created to support existing HOPs and new observation requests. Requests for further information or new observations can be sent to us or to the SOT Science Scheduling Coordinators, Dick Shine (shine at lmsal.com) and Takashi Sekii (sekii at solar.mtk.nao.ac.jp).

Ted Tarbell, US SOT PI, Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Lab
Sabrina Savage, US Hinode Project Scientist, NASA MSFC
Yoshinori Suematsu, SOT PI, NAOJ
Toshifumi Shimizu, JAXA Hinode project manager, ISAS/JAXA

2016 Mar 22:

XPOW: XRT Flare Catalog

2016 Mar 15:

XPOW: Moon Blocks X-rays from Sun

2016 Mar 08:

XPOW: One Active Region, Three Ways

2016 Mar 01:

XPOW: The Coolest Plasmas Form the Hottest Trends

2016 Feb 23:

XPOW: Lassoing an Active Region

2016 Feb 16:

XPOW: Active Region Tug of War

2016 Feb 09:

XPOW: Hinode XRT Digital Valentine's Day Cards

2016 Feb 02:

XPOW: A Magnetic Null and Cool Reconnection

2016 Jan 26:

XPOW: An Active Region Prominence

2016 Jan 19:

XPOW: SCIA Reveals Transient Coronal Hole

2016 Jan 12:

New XRT paper: "The Hinode/XRT Full-Sun Image Corrections and the Improved Synoptic Composite Image Archive" by Aki Takeda, Keiji Yoshimura, and Steve Saar was published in Solar Physics, 2016, Vol 291, pg 317. The XRT Synoptic Composite Image Archive (SCIA) is a storage and gallery of X-ray full-Sun images obtained through the synoptic program of the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) onboard the Hinode satellite. The archived images provide a quick history of solar activity through the daily and monthly layout pages and long-term data for morphological and quantitative studies of the X-ray corona. This article serves as an introduction to the SCIA, i.e., to the structure of the archive and specification of the data products included therein. We also describe a number of techniques used to improve the quality of the archived images: preparation of composite images to increase intensity dynamic range, removal of dark spots that are due to contaminants on the CCD, and correction of the visible stray light contamination that has been detected on the Ti-poly and C-poly filter images since May 2012.

2016 Jan 12:

XPOW: Unraveling an Active Region

2016 Jan 07:

SOT POD: December 28th Flare and CME

2016 Jan 05:

SOT POD: A New Years Flare

2016 Jan 05:

XPOW: Active Region Sigmoid

2016 Jan:

EIS Nugget: Photospheric Abundances of Polar Jets on the Sun Observed by Hinode

NASA Contact: Sabrina Savage
Page Last Updated: Tuesday, 04 April 2017