AR2993/2994: X flare!

[3gMike]

1 hour ago, MinYoongi said:

i still dont know if there is a difference between the gong and the stanford farside maps, if yes, which one is more accurate etc ... 

NSO and Stanford collaborate, and both use GONG data.

There is a detailed article on the Stanford site which describes how they produce their maps -  http://jsoc.stanford.edu/data/farside/explanation.pdf

An extract (below)indicates how they discriminate the Strong Active Regions, and their reasons for doing this -

"6. The Strong Active Region Discriminator (SARD) Figure 3, below, illustrates the operation of the “Strong Active Region Discriminator (SARD)” applied to the helioseismic maps of the Sun’s far hemisphere. The frame with the dark blue background identifies seismic signatures sufficiently strong to suggest that the associated active regions may have a potential impact on space weather at Earth. There is generally an associated flare potentiality that can impact the Earth- and nearEarth environment when the active region eventually passes through central meridian in the Sun’s near hemisphere. The helioseismic signatures of the individual SARs are given numerical designations (right color bar) in the order of their first recognition by the Discriminator."

[MinYoongi]

11 minutes ago, 3gMike said:

NSO and Stanford collaborate, and both use GONG data.

There is a detailed article on the Stanford site which describes how they produce their maps -  http://jsoc.stanford.edu/data/farside/explanation.pdf

An extract (below)indicates how they discriminate the Strong Active Regions, and their reasons for doing this -

"6. The Strong Active Region Discriminator (SARD) Figure 3, below, illustrates the operation of the “Strong Active Region Discriminator (SARD)” applied to the helioseismic maps of the Sun’s far hemisphere. The frame with the dark blue background identifies seismic signatures sufficiently strong to suggest that the associated active regions may have a potential impact on space weather at Earth. There is generally an associated flare potentiality that can impact the Earth- and nearEarth environment when the active region eventually passes through central meridian in the Sun’s near hemisphere. The helioseismic signatures of the individual SARs are given numerical designations (right color bar) in the order of their first recognition by the Discriminator."

Why are both different then? What do you think about accuracy? What are your overall thoughts on this region? 

I remember we had an almost as big region on the farside once and then it started decay and a big alpha spot appeared

[Solarflaretracker200]

4 hours ago, MinYoongi said:

I remember we had an almost as big region on the farside once and then it started decay and a big alpha spot appeared

The one we assumed that unleashed the biggest solar flare ever?

[MinYoongi]

2 minutes ago, Solarflaretracker200 said:

The one we assumed that unleashed the biggest solar flare ever?

Biggest solar flare ever? Can we not resort to such terminology? this is not spaceweather.com   It was a big CME if i remember right.. It was a big region, i think you started the topic back then! When it rotated onto the disc it was 1 big alpha spot with lots of faculae.

 

so my question remains, how precise are those farside maps? 

 

[Solarflaretracker200]

On 4/30/2022 at 9:10 AM, Tristan said:

hmm. wonder if this has a shot at returning for a 3rd trip.

Remember when I said I doubt it will return? It's now a fair possibility for this region to return

13 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

Can we not resort to such terminology? this is not spaceweather.com   It was a big CME if i remember right.. It was a big region,

Sorry for my bad terminology and yes it was a big region.

13 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

i think you started the topic back then!

I don't think so, but you could be right. 

[MinYoongi]

2 minutes ago, Solarflaretracker200 said:

Remember when I said I doubt it will return? It's now a fair possibility for this region to return

Sorry for my bad terminology and yes it was a big region.

I don't think so, but you could be right. 

yup it could return. i think its still a week so it could still change..

farm24 started the topic, it was in mid february.  

 

[Solarflaretracker200]

Just now, MinYoongi said:

farm24 started the topic, it was in mid february.

Jeez, that long already? Then a little over a month later we have a crazy region spewing off solar flares 🤣 that we wished had happened with that region. 

[3gMike]

4 hours ago, MinYoongi said:

What do you think about accuracy? What are your overall thoughts on this region? 

I think that the GONG map you found represents the data slightly differently - perhaps just focusing on the strongest activity. I found another GONG product from NSO, which looks much more similar to the JSOC version, but it is presented in a different format.

I've marked the farside region we have been discussing and AR3006 on the earthside for comparison.

I think it is fair to say that the farside region as a whole looks much bigger than anything else on the whole solar disc, but if you just consider the very intense region centred on Carrington Longitude 100 it is only a little bit larger than AR3006. My suspicion is that the area will break into smaller regions as it approaches the limb - because I have seen that happen a few times with similar regions, but in the end it is only a guess.

[MinYoongi]

5 minutes ago, 3gMike said:

I think that the GONG map you found represents the data slightly differently - perhaps just focusing on the strongest activity. I found another GONG product from NSO, which looks much more similar to the JSOC version, but it is presented in a different format.

I've marked the farside region we have been discussing and AR3006 on the earthside for comparison.

I think it is fair to say that the farside region as a whole looks much bigger than anything else on the whole solar disc, but if you just consider the very intense region centred on Carrington Longitude 100 it is only a little bit larger than AR3006. My suspicion is that the area will break into smaller regions as it approaches the limb - because I have seen that happen a few times with similar regions, but in the end it is only a guess.

So you think its not that huge after all? 

[3gMike]

20 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

So you think its not that huge after all? 

Well, this is how I see it - AR3006 spans about 20 deg latitude and about 40 deg longitude. Compare that with the leading (largest / right hand) part of the farside region which spans maybe 25 deg latitude and maybe 40 deg longitude. Not much difference in size. However, the farside region currently has a much greater contact zone between positive and negative polarities, so that might mean it will be more active than 3006.

[MinYoongi]

6 minutes ago, 3gMike said:

Well, this is how I see it - AR3006 spans about 20 deg latitude and about 40 deg longitude. Compare that with the leading (largest / right hand) part of the farside region which spans maybe 25 deg latitude and maybe 40 deg longitude. Not much difference in size. However, the farside region currently has a much greater contact zone between positive and negative polarities, so that might mean it will be more active than 3006.

3006 is greatly inactive, not hard to be active.

 

one thing, how can they determine what is positive and negative without imagery? do you maybe have a link for that map? Its really good.

 

okay, so just so that i understand : The region is not that huge like we think but rather more than 1 region in close proximity? Could that change over the next 7 days until limb?

[SunspotRager93]

On 5/6/2022 at 3:58 PM, Orneno said:

Those white spots you see around some sunspots, or where sunspots used to be. They are also called plages or H-alpha plages. They signal areas of stronger magnetic fields, like sunspots, but weaker than sunspots. Typically they do not flare, and are not nearly as interesting as sunspots. If they are around a sunspot, they often signal that a spot is in a decay phase, or at least not a growth phase, although not always. Faculae are frustrating because they can pretend to be large sunspot groups on farside/STEREO imagery, but when they rotate onto the Earth-facing disk we can see they were just faculae after all, and thus very little flare potential and a bit of a disappointment. That’s why it’s not good to get too hyped up about something on the farside we think is strong before we can actually see if it’s a sunspot. 

Oh thanks! So that would make sense why we don't trust farside map.

[3gMike]

9 hours ago, MinYoongi said:

one thing, how can they determine what is positive and negative without imagery? do you maybe have a link for that map? Its really good.

Link to map here https://gong2.nso.edu/products/scaleView/view.php?configFile=configs/quickreduce.cfg The movie is made up of hundreds of images. Using the controls you can select and stop on individual images. Underneath the image you will see a file name listed. I just copied the file name and pasted it into my browser.

I have not yet totally understood how the images are produced, but you will see that they refer to it as a magnetogram. Also note that the scale at the top of the map gives dates going back to 14th April. That leads me to suspect that they are perhaps combining HMI data with current GONG, but that is just a guess at present. I will investigate further.

[MinYoongi]

4 hours ago, 3gMike said:

Link to map here https://gong2.nso.edu/products/scaleView/view.php?configFile=configs/quickreduce.cfg The movie is made up of hundreds of images. Using the controls you can select and stop on individual images. Underneath the image you will see a file name listed. I just copied the file name and pasted it into my browser.

I have not yet totally understood how the images are produced, but you will see that they refer to it as a magnetogram. Also note that the scale at the top of the map gives dates going back to 14th April. That leads me to suspect that they are perhaps combining HMI data with current GONG, but that is just a guess at present. I will investigate further.

Thank you. 

Yeah im confused because as far as i know we dont even have a magnetogram on Stereo?

@3gMike whats weird too is if you watch the movie, the region does not seem to grow or change for days which is not really true because it grew over the last 3-4 days steadily

[Solarflaretracker200]

On 4/9/2022 at 2:01 PM, Vancanneyt Sander said:

A lot can happen in a 14 day transit on the farside. Not many regions survive a solar rotation, only the biggest and strong regions can do that. Plus farside imagery isn’t exact and always has to be taken with a big grain of salt. Let’s wait when it’s about to rotate to the visible side and see if it is still active. 

I just want your thoughts on this... do you think AR2993/AR2994 (Maybe just AR2994 is what it sounds like) could return again? I think they could because if you look here http://jsoc.stanford.edu/data/farside/ they are pretty big, but this could just be faculae. 

1 hour ago, MinYoongi said:

Thank you. 

Yeah im confused because as far as i know we dont even have a magnetogram on Stereo?

@3gMike whats weird too is if you watch the movie, the region does not seem to grow or change for days which is not really true because it grew over the last 3-4 days steadily

It's 'strength' is 5861, you seem to be tracking it...Is that more or less than it was yesterday?

[MinYoongi]

52 minutes ago, Solarflaretracker200 said:

I just want your thoughts on this... do you think AR2993/AR2994 (Maybe just AR2994 is what it sounds like) could return again? I think they could because if you look here http://jsoc.stanford.edu/data/farside/ they are pretty big, but this could just be faculae. 

It's 'strength' is 5861, you seem to be tracking it...Is that more or less than it was yesterday?

Almost the same. Next update will be in an Hour.

Gong Updated now, its always first.

I just want to say that its still a week until the region will start to appear on the limb and you know that alot can happen in that timespan so we should be more cautious with getting the hopes up etc. Also i still have to receive an answer from someone that knows the maps better than I do about if/how precise and trustable they are. Im not experienced yet.

Gong Map shows big spots with some intensity but if you look into the archive that can seem to change really quick

Also, the "strength'' index is something i still dont fully understand. I think its "only" the area size? But idk

[Vancanneyt Sander]

3 uren geleden, Solarflaretracker200 zei:

I just want your thoughts on this... do you think AR2993/AR2994 (Maybe just AR2994 is what it sounds like) could return again? I

Still a long way and a lot can still happen… I never follow the farside, I only get excited if there are big magnetic loops coming over the limb with a lot of activity 😉

[MinYoongi]

53 minutes ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

Still a long way and a lot can still happen… I never follow the farside, I only get excited if there are big magnetic loops coming over the limb with a lot of activity 😉

Could this also be a semi answer to my question about farside maps and their accuracy?

[Vancanneyt Sander]

1 uur geleden, MinYoongi zei:

Could this also be a semi answer to my question about farside maps and their accuracy?

They are NOT 100% accurate! The farside map is ONLY accurate if there is a confidence level of 70% or higher of a detected region. That means the region has to be circled in red on the calibrated GONG farside map (the grey version)!

See also this paper for more explanation and improvements made to the Farside GONG: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009SW000560

ps: size doesn’t matter, the magnetic complexity is and you can’t see that on a farside map so it’s still a bit useless.

[MinYoongi]

18 minutes ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

They are NOT 100% accurate! The farside map is ONLY accurate if there is a confidence level of 70% or higher of a detected region. That means the region has to be circled in red on the calibrated GONG farside map (the grey version)!

See also this paper for more explanation and improvements made to the Farside GONG: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009SW000560

ps: size doesn’t matter, the magnetic complexity is and you can’t see that on a farside map so it’s still a bit useless.

Yep, thats why i asked how they produce that magnetogram posted by mike like 4 comments above.

they are encircled with 100%   But it changes every 12h right now

also, yeah size does not matter but is it a stretch when a region grows that huge/much in a few days to say it might be complex? I think still no cme's though.. 

[3gMike]

23 hours ago, MinYoongi said:

Yep, thats why i asked how they produce that magnetogram posted by mike like 4 comments above.

I said that I would do some further research. It looks like they are using the data captured when the area was on the earthside.

In the process, I was able to identify that the area has been present  since at least 27th January. I have captured and combined images from 3rd February and for each rotation since.

On first appearance it produced AR 2936 at Carrington Longitude (CL) 117

Next time round (4th March image) it produced AR2954 at CL119 and AR2955 at CL106

Then (31st March image) it produced AR2975 at CL88 and AR2976 at CL68

Followed (26th April image) by AR2993 at CL111 and AR2994 at CL105

Based on that data, and comparing with the Seismic data from today's Composite map http://jsoc.stanford.edu/data/farside/ it seems reasonable to expect some activity in the next few days - probably starting Thursday or Friday.

 

[SunspotRager93]

On 5/8/2022 at 11:25 AM, Vancanneyt Sander said:

Still a long way and a lot can still happen… I never follow the farside, I only get excited if there are big magnetic loops coming over the limb with a lot of activity 😉

Does big loops mean lots of activity? 

[Sam Warfel]

49 minutes ago, SunspotRager93 said:

Does big loops mean lots of activity? 

Not necessarily, but they indicate a large AR, and show it’s not just faculae.