Category: AAS/SPD SolarNews

The Astrophysical Journal: Changes in Article Submission Process

from Leon Golub, 22 Feb 2016

Starting in late February 2016, AJ and ApJ submissions have been consolidated into a single submission site. From the site authors will select an appropriate broad subject corridor. For the SPD community this will most often be the corridor named “The Sun and The Heliosphere.”

Details about the new submission process can be found at journals.aas.org and links from that page. The seven corridors are described in the links, which also include broad guidelines about which papers will go to AJ and which to ApJ. In the Solar and Helio corridor the baseline assumption is that accepted papers will appear in ApJ.

Note that until the ApJL is integrated into the new single submission site authors who wish to publish in the Letters must go to the ApJL submission site.… continue to the full article

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The “Heliophysics” Series: A New Volume

from Karel Schrijver

A fourth volume in the “Heliophysics” series will be released by Cambridge University Press (CUP) on March 17, 2016, entitled “Heliophysics: Active stars, their astrospheres, and impacts on planetary environments”. This volume, edited by C. Schrijver, F. Bagenal, and J. Sojka, expands the topics related to the Sun-Earth connections presented in the preceding three volumes to other bodies in the solar system and to extrasolar planetary systems.

CUP (at cambridge.org) offers a 20% discount (on pre-orders, and throughout 2016 after the book becomes available) with discount code “heliophy”: www.cambridge.org/9781107090477

The same discount (with the same code) applies to the hardcover and paperback editions of the preceding three “Heliophysics” volumes, subtitled “Plasma physics of the local cosmos”, “Space storms and radiation: causes and effects”, and “Evolving solar activity and the climates of space and Earth”.

A provisional 5th volume on “Space Weather and Society” can be freely downloaded from: www.vsp.ucar.edu/Heliophysics/science-resources-textbooks.shtml

The Heliophysics books aim at the advanced undergraduate and at graduate-level students, taking the perspective of heliophysics as a single intellectual discipline. The books touch on most branches of heliophysics, with particular emphasis on universal processes and on the multi-disciplinary character of many of its diverse range of specialties. The list of topics includes the formation of planetary systems, astrophysical dynamos, heliospheric perturbations, particle acceleration, cosmic-ray modulation, interactions of the solar wind with planetary magnetospheres, impulstive and explosive events, irradiance and the tropospheric climate system, ionospheric processes, and impacts of space weather on satellites and for manned space flight, among many more.

The Heliophysics book series has its origins in the Summer School series of the same name. Many of the recorded lectures, problem sets, lab manuals, and other online supporting materials can be accessed at the School’s site at www.vsp.ucar.edu/Heliophysics/… continue to the full article

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Major calibration software update for Hinode XRT

This is to announce that the Hinode XRT instrument team has made a significant revision / improvement / enhancement to the `xrt_prep.pro’ code (i.e., the XRT Level-1 reformatter). Aside from a number of minor bug fixes, there are several major new features. Users should ensure that their SolarSoft SSW IDL libraries are up-to-date.
The code can now perform a cosmetic correction for contamination spots and dust on the CCD. This feature can be accessed using the new keyword /DESPIKE_DESPOT (which allows the user to do cosmetic particle hit removal as well, if desired). The spot correction uses thin plate splines (in most cases) to smoothly interpolate between boundary pixels outside of the given spot/dust area. It is HIGHLY recommended that the user employ this in conjunction with the keyword GRADE_MAP=GRADE_MAP, to generate a pixel grade map, so that the location of spots and dust can be identified. Note that the correction in purely cosmetic; pixels affected by dust and/or spots should NOT be used for quantitative analysis. A new despiking subroutine (`xrt_despike2.pro’), which better avoids over-correcting the data, has also been introduced.

The dust on the CCD has been observed to be growing (between CCD bakeouts) and shrinking (after bakeouts) of late, suggesting that contamination is starting to adhere to the dust temporarily. The cosmetic correction code also adjusts (approximately) for the time-dependent dust size. A new catagory of pixel grade, dust growth pixels, has been added to the output of the subroutine `xrt_pixel_grade.pro’.

The code also can provide an array giving photometric errors due to calibration uncertainties (e.g., uncertainty in the dark subtraction, Fourier filtering, vignetting correction, exposure time, etc.); see Kobelski et al. (2014, Solar Physics, in press; arXiv:1312.4850) for details. The error array provides a basal estimate of uncertainty in the XRT data. This feature is accessed using the new keyword UNCERT_MAP=UNCERT_MAP. Note that photon noise errors are NOT included, as these depend on the detailed thermal structure of the target, since XRT is a broadband detector.

Usage notes can be found in the `xrt_prep.pro’ program header (and in the headers of related routines). Detailed information is provided in an updated version of the XRT Analysis Guide, which can be found online at: http://xrt.cfa.harvard.edu/resources/documents/ as well as in the SolarSoft XRT tree at: $SSW/hinode/xrt/docs/XAG.pdf

Feedback may be emailed to “xrt_manager” at the domain “cfa.harvard.edu”.

–The Hinode XRT Team

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Solar News Items of Interest

Solar News Items of Interest

http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100713.txt

  • End of EIT CME watch observations
  • Nature will start accepting solar papers again
  • ACCEHS Workshop: SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT
  • AGU Fall 2010 – Session SH04 : Nonlinear Structures and Processes in the
    Solar Wind Plasma
  • Electronics engineer position (full time) University of Kiel
  • Post-Doctoral research position (full time) University of Kiel

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Solar News Items of Interest

Solar News Items of Interest

http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100615.txt

  • SDO/AIA test data now available
  • Living Reviews in Solar Physics: “The Sun’s Supergranulation”
  • SDO AIA data available via the VSO
  • TRACE mission ending
  • SHINE Workshop 2010
  • Planning a New Flare/CME/SEP Mission
  • 10th RHESSI Workshop: Important Deadlines
  • Local Helioseismology Workshop, August 2-6, 2010, Stanford
  • Fellowships for PhD Students in Solar System Physics
  • JOB OPPORTUNITY: Electronics Engineer Position at University of Kiel, Germany
  • JOB OPPORTUNITY: Post-doctoral Position at University of Kiel, Germany

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Solar News Items of interest

http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100602.txt

  • Web-based Online Catalog of Solar Limb Prominences (SLIPCAT)
  • The 2013 – 2022 NRC Decadal Survey in Solar and Space Physics
  • The Origin, Evolution, and Diagnosis of Solar Flare Magnetic Fields and Plasmas: Honoring the Contributions of Dick Canfield
  • First Announcement: XXII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics on “Asteroseismology” (November 15-26, 2010)
  • 10th RHESSI Workshop, Annapolis, Maryland, August 1 – 5, 2010
  • INTERNATIONAL ADVANCED SCHOOL ON SPACE WEATHER MODELLING AND APPLICATIONS
  • The European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2010 in Rome, Italy – Sessio MG6 “Solar Wind – Magnetosphere – Ionosphere interactions throughout the solar system”
  • Associate Professorship in Observational Stellar Astrophysics
  • MMS Mission Education and Public Outreach Lead

http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100615.txt

  • SDO/AIA test data now available
  • Living Reviews in Solar Physics: “The Sun’s Supergranulation”
  • SDO AIA data available via the VSO
  • TRACE mission ending
  • SHINE Workshop 2010
  • Planning a New Flare/CME/SEP Mission
  • 10th RHESSI Workshop: Important Deadlines
  • Local Helioseismology Workshop, August 2-6, 2010, Stanford
  • Fellowships for PhD Students in Solar System Physics
  • JOB OPPORTUNITY: Electronics Engineer Position at University of Kiel, Germany
  • JOB OPPORTUNITY: Post-doctoral Position at University of Kiel, Germany

… continue to the full article

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Solar News Items of Interest

Solar News Items of Interest

http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100216.txt

  • Chromospheric synoptic magnetograms from SOLIS
  • Topical Issue (TI) of Solar Physics: The Sun–Earth Connectio near Solar Minimum: Placing it into Context
  • COSPAR 2010: Special Session on Solar Spectral Irradiance Variations and Their Influence on the Earth’s Atmosphere
  • SH08.: Solving the coronal heating riddle: recent developments and future directions
  • SORCE Meeting – Abstracts due Feb. 1
  • Tenure-Track Faculty Position at Boston University

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SolarNews Items of Interest – http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100201.txt

SolarNews Items of Interest

http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100201.txt

  • The Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, Coronal Image Database
  • New book in Asteroseismology
  • Call for papers: AOGS2010 session ST10 “Space weather and space climate: coupling processes from the Sun to the Earth”
  • Call for papers: COSPAR Session D23-E33 “Multi-Spacecraft Observations and
    Modeling of CMEs and Stream Interaction Regions”
  • COSPAR SCIENTIFIC COMMISSION E (a message from N. Gehrels)
  • COSPAR Announcement : Event 22 : New Views of the Sun with SDO
  • SHINE Workshop 2010
  • Special SPD Session on ” What Irradiance Studies Tell Us About Solar Heat Transport and Magnetism”
  • IAU Symposium 273: Physics of Sun and Star Spots
  • Call for papers, 38th COSPAR Scientific Assembly, Event E21: The Challenge of the Hidden Scales in Solar Dynamic Phenomena
  • Postdoctoral Position at the Ruhr Universitaet Bochum within the SOLAIRE
    Network

… continue to the full article

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