Abdanour Irbah

PICARD SODISM, a space telescope to study the Sun from the middle ultraviolet to the near infrared

The Solar Diameter Imager and Surface Mapper (SODISM) onboard the Picard space mission provides wide-field images of the photosphere and chromosphere of the Sun in five narrow bandpasses centered at 215.0, 393.37, 535.7, 607.1, and 782.2xa0nm. The Picard spacecraft was successfully launched on 15 June 2010 into a Sun-synchronous dawn–dusk orbit. The Picard space mission represents a European asset in collecting solar observations useful to improve Earth climatic models. The scientific payload consists of the SODISM imager and of two radiometers, SOlar VAriability Picard (SOVAP) and PREcision MOnitor Sensor (PREMOS), which measure the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) and part of the Solar Spectral Irradiance (SSI).The SODISM telescope continuously monitors solar activity from the middle ultraviolet to the near infrared spectral ranges and produces solar images that feed SSI reconstruction models. Further, SODISM probes the solar interior via a helioseismic analysis of the solar disc and limb images at 535.7 nm, and via astrometric investigations at the limb. The latter allows us to deduce the spectral dependence of the solar limb profile, and the asphericity of the Sun. Furthermore, SODISM data taken during the transit of Venus allow a determination of the absolute value of the solar diameter. This paper provides a detailed description of the SODISM instrument, including thermo-optical analysis, its different modes of observation, and its first performance in space.

Solar diameter measurements with Calern Observatory astrolabe and atmospheric turbulence effects

In order to deduce significant astrophysical results from solar diameter measurements it is necessary to take an accurate account of instrumental and atmospheric effects. This paper presents a comparison between visual and CCD camera measurements performed by means of the Calern Observatory solar astrolabe during the last 4 years; this allows us to evaluate visual measurements done previously (from 1975 to 1989). Then, a study of atmospheric effects is developed. From CCD measurements, the image quality, expressed by Frieds seeing parameter,r0, is estimated and related to the errors occurring in solar diameter measurements. A statistical analysis gives about 0.26 arc sec (or 0.13 arc sec for the semi-diameter) as the lowest value that this error may reach at Calern Observatory. One conclusion of this work is that it is important in the future to have image quality observations, obtained using a dedicated monitor, in order to evaluate and classify the measurements. A survey of the seeing might so lead to improve the precision of the results by weighting each diameter estimation and eventually to schedule the observations.

Solar radius determination from SODISM/PICARD and HMI/SDO observations of the decrease of the spectral solar radiance during the 2012 June Venus transit

On 2012 June 5-6, the transit of Venus provided a rare opportunity to determine the radius of the Sun using solar imagers observing a well-defined object, namely, the planet and its atmosphere, partially occulting the Sun. A new method has been developed to estimate the solar radius during a planetary transit. It is based on the estimation of the spectral solar radiance decrease in a region around the contact between the planet and the Sun at the beginning of the ingress and at the end of the egress. The extrapolation to zero of the radiance decrease versus the Sun-to-Venus apparent angular distance allows estimation of the solar radius at the time of first and fourth contacts. This method presents the advantage of being almost independent on the plate scale, the distortion, the refraction by the planetary atmosphere, and on the point-spread function of the imager. It has been applied to two space solar visible imagers, SODISM/PICARD and HMI/SDO. The found results are mutually consistent, despite their different error budgets: 959.85 ± 0.19 (1σ) for SODISM at 607.1 nm and 959.90 ± 0.06 (1σ) for HMI at 617.3 nm.

ON THE CONSTANCY OF THE DIAMETER OF THE SUN DURING THE RISING PHASE OF SOLAR CYCLE 24

The potential relationship between solar activity and changes in solar diameter remains the subject of debate and requires both models and measurements with sufficient precision over long periods of time. Using the PICARD instruments, we carried out precise measurements of variations in solar diameter during the rising phase of solar cycle 24. From new correction methods we found changes in PICARD space telescope solar radius amplitudes that were less than ±20 mas (i.e. ±14.5 km) for the years 2010–2011. Moreover, PICARD ground-based telescope solar radius amplitudes are smaller than ±50 mas from 2011 to 2014. Our observations could not find any direct link between solar activity and significant fluctuations in solar radius, considering that the variations, if they exist, are included within this range of values. Further, the contribution of solar radius fluctuations is low with regard to variations in total solar irradiance. Indeed, we find a small variation of the solar radius from space measurements with a typical periodicity of 129.5 days, with ±6.5 mas variation.

Ground-based measurements of the solar diameter during the rising phase of solar cycle 24

For the past thirty years, modern ground-based time-series of the solar radius have shown different apparent variations according to different instruments. The origins of these variations may result from the observer, the instrument, the atmosphere, or the Sun. Solar radius measurements have been made for a very long time and in different ways. Yet we see inconsistencies in the measurements. Numerous studies of solar radius variation appear in the literature, but with conflicting results. These measurement differences are certainly related to instrumental effects or atmospheric effects. Use of different methods (determination of the solar radius), instruments, and effects of Earths atmosphere could explain the lack of consistency on the past measurements. A survey of the solar radius has been initiated in 1975 by Francis Laclare, at the Calern site of the Observatoire de la Cote dAzur (OCA). Several efforts are currently made from space missions to obtain accurate solar astrometric measurements, for example, to probe the long-term variations of solar radius, their link with solar irradiance variations, and their influence on the Earth climate. Aims. The Picard program includes a ground-based observatory consisting of different instruments based at the Calern site (OCA, France). This set of instruments has been named Picard Sol and consists of a Ritchey-Chretien telescope providing full-disk images of the Sun in five narrow-wavelength bandpasses (centered on 393.37, 535.7, 607.1, 782.2, and 1025.0 nm), a Sun-photometer that measures the properties of atmospheric aerosol, a pyranometer for estimating a global sky-quality index, a wide-field camera that detects the location of clouds, and a generalized daytime seeing monitor allowing us to measure the spatio-temporal parameters of the local turbulence. Picard Sol is meant to perpetuate valuable historical series of the solar radius and to initiate new time-series, in particular during solar cycle 24. Methods. We defined the solar radius by the inflection-point position of the solar-limb profiles taken at different angular positions of the image. Our results were corrected for the effects of refraction and turbulence by numerical methods. Results. From a dataset of more than 20u2009000 observations carried out between 2011 and 2013, we find a solar radius of 959.78 ± 0.19 arcsec (696 113 ± 138 km) at 535.7 nm after making all necessary corrections. For the other wavelengths in the solar continuum, we derive very similar results. The solar radius observed with the Solar Diameter Imager and Surface Mapper II during the period 2011-2013 shows variations shorter than 50 milli-arcsec that are out of phase with solar activity.

New space value of the solar oblateness obtained with PICARD

The PICARD spacecraft was launched on 2010 June 15 with the scientific objective of studying the geometry of the Sun. It is difficult to measure solar oblateness because images are affected by optical distortion. Rolling the satellite, as done in previous space missions, determines the contribution of the telescope by assuming that the geometry of the Sun is constant during the observations. The optical response of the telescope is considered to be time-invariant during the roll operations. This is not the case for PICARD because an orbital signature is clearly observed in the solar radius computed from its images. We take this effect into account and provide the new space value of solar oblateness from PICARD images recorded in the solar continuum at 535.7 nm on 2011 July 4-5. The equator-pole radius difference is 8.4 ± 0.5 mas, which corresponds to an absolute radius difference of 6.1 km. This coincides with the mean value of all solar oblateness measurements obtained during the last two decades from the ground, balloons, and space. It is also consistent with values determined from models using helioseismology data.

Helioseismology with PICARD

PICARD is a CNES micro-satellite launched in June 2010 (Thuillier at al. 2006). Its main goal is to measure the solar shape, total and spectral irradiance during the ascending phase of the activity cycle. The SODISM telescope onboard PICARD also allows us to conduct a program for helioseismology in intensity at 535.7 nm (Corbard et al. 2008). One-minute cadence low-resolution full images are available for a so-called medium-

Solar seeing monitor MISOLFA: A new method for estimating atmospheric turbulence parameters

l

SOVAP/Picard, a Spaceborne Radiometer to Measure the Total Solar Irradiance

program, and high-resolution images of the limb recorded every 2 minutes are used to study mode amplification near the limb in the perspective of g-mode search. First analyses and results from these two programs are presented here.

The Plate Scale of the SODISM Instrument and the Determination of the Solar Radius at 607.1 nm

Daily observation conditions are needed when observing the Sun at high angular resolution. MISOLFA is a daytime seeing monitor developed for this purpose that allows the estimation of the spatial and temporal parameters of atmospheric turbulence. This information is necessary, for instance, for astrometric measurements of the solar radius performed at Calern Observatory (France) with SODISM II, the ground-based version of the SODISM instrument of the PICARD mission. nWe present a new way to estimate the spatial parameters of atmospheric turbulence for daily observations. This method is less sensitive to vibrations and guiding defaults of the telescope since it uses short-exposure images. It is based on the comparison of the optical transfer function obtained from solar data and the theoretical values deduced from the Kolmogorov and Von Ka`rma`n models. This method, previously tested on simulated solar images, is applied to real data recorded at Calern Observatory in July 2013 with the MISOLFA monitor. nFirst, we use data recorded in the pupil plane mode of MISOLFA and evaluate the turbulence characteristic times of angle- of-arrival fluctuations: between 5 and 16 milliseconds. Second, we use the focal plane mode of MISOLFA to simultaneously record solar images to obtain isoplanatic angles: ranging from 1 to 5 arcseconds (in agreement with previously published values). These images and our new method allow Fried’s parameter to be measured; it ranges from 0.5 cm to 4.7 cm with a mean value of 1.5 cm when Kolmogorov’s model is considered, and from less than 0.5 to 2.6 cm with a mean value of 1.3 cm for the Von Ka`rma`n model. Measurements of the spatial coherence outer scale parameter are also obtained when using the Von Karman model; it ranges from 0.25 to 13 meters with a mean value of 3.4 meters for the four days of observation that we analyzed. We found that its value can undergo large variations in only a few hours and that more data analysis is needed to better define its statistics.