Spacecraft Calibrations Provide Unique Solar "Artwork"

By Nancy Atkinson - October 27, 2010 at 6:53 AM UTC | Missions
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If you check out the

Solar Dynamics Observatory website

today to get an update of what the Sun is doing, (which you should -everyday!) you may have noticed a few of the daily images appeared to be "sliding" across the screen. That's because yesterday the team from the AIA instrument (Atmospheric Imaging Assembly) performed several instrument calibration maneuvers, in which the AIA boresight was moved away from the center of the Sun. When the images are re-centered some of them have lines to the edges of the picture, creating some very nifty solar artwork. Enjoy them now, as this effect will only show up in the "rapid" images shown on their website, and later, they'll be corrected in the science database. See more below.

[caption id="attachment_76697" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="More SDO artwork. "]

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SDO takes images of the Sun in several different wavelengths, which highlights different features. On

SDO's Facebook

page, the team wrote, "It appears that the re-centering of the images is copying the value at the edge of the field of view rather than zero while the image is being shifted to the center of the picture."

And even though the images will be fixed, they won't be able to fix them completely. The information that is missing from images can't be recovered because the instrument wasn't pointed at the Sun at the time the image was taken.

[caption id="attachment_76700" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="More SDO artwork. "]

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com