HELIOS VIDEO

The HELIOS image and a 3.6 Mbyte *.avi time-lapse video sequence are contour-plot representations of the 24 May, 1979 CME event as it proceeds outward into the interplanetary medium. The video is produced by interpolating the HELIOS white-light photometer data in two-hour intervals and these brightness data are converted to columnar electron density and plotted on a computer screen. The computer screen is `captured' and made into a video sequence. The HELIOS-2 contour images present the photometer data with the Sun centered in the image. Various solar elongations labeled on the abcissa in degrees form semi-circles above the ecliptic plane, i.e., the horizontal line. The position of the Earth is marked by the blue dot and the tilt angle of the solar north pole is indicated by the short line segment crossing 90 deg. elongation. Positions of the photometer sector centers are marked by small dots. Electron columnar density is contoured in levels of 3 X 10^14 / cm squared. The small Sun-centered display to the upper right of the images indicate the relative locations of the Earth, Sun and HELIOS-2 spacecraft. The event in the video was imaged by the SOLWIND coronagraph before becoming visible in the HELIOS photometers. Details of how individual images are constructed can be found discussed more completely in Jackson (1985) or Jackson and Leinert (1985) (about the 7 May 1979 CME).

  • Jackson, B.V., `Imaging of Coronal Mass Ejections by the Helios Spacecraft', invited review paper in the 100th "Jubilee" issue of Solar Phys., 100, 563, 1985.
  • Jackson, B.V. and Leinert, C., `Helios Images of Solar Mass Ejections', J. Geophys. Res., 90, 10759, 1985.
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