Thanks.
Mangled terminology below, probably, but hopefully my conclusions are correct:
I don't see how this helps your case. The 171 A pass band (which, I gather is also called 173 A. See e.g. Oddbjorn Engvold, John W. Harvey, Carolus J. Schrijver, Neale E. Hurlburt, The physics of the solar corona and transition region) is associated with temps from 160,000K to 2,000,000K.
Keep in mind that the concept of a 'transition region' was *assumed* before launch. Nobody could be sure where these emissions would come from in advance, or be sure where that "transition region" is actually physically located. What is true is that to even emit photons of these wavelengths, the plasma (and only plasma could do that) must reach temperatures of at least 160,000 degrees, and more likely a million or more degrees. The only thing that reaches those temperatures on Earth are *DISCHARGES* in our atmosphere. Such events start at a "transition region" called a "crust", and rise high into the atmosphere. Sometimes they occur as pure atmospheric events. Sometimes they occur in the form of 'sprites'. There's often no "simple" or "single' possibility of where we might find such superheated plasma even in our own atmosphere. About all we can say for sure, is this plasma is *HOT*.
The Corona temp is approx 1,000,000K - 3,000,000K.
Due to Thompson scattering effects, it's not reasonable to *ASSUME* that the *ENTIRE* coronal is 3million Kelvin. Sure, loops reach those temps. Any plasma around the loop is also likely to be heated by the loop. That does no necessarily mean that the *ENTIRE* corona is hot, but assuming it is that hot we have some 'explaining to do' as to cause and effect and how it got that hot in the first place sitting on top of a relatively cool 6,000 degrees Kelvin photosphere.
Neither the Photosphere nor the Chromosphere exhibit temps higher than 20,000K (6400K max for the Photosphere - all of this from wikipedia, sorry!)
The air in our atmosphere doesn't reach a million degrees either, but the plasma in a lightening bolt sure does, and it touches the ground. You can't simply *ASSUME* that all these emissions *NECESSARILY* come from high in the atmosphere. Some of them might. Perhaps not all of them. You can't simply "assume" that from the start as LMSAL did before launch. They made a systematic assumption from the beginning of their analysis process that was suspect from the start. They *ASSUMED* a location prior to launch.
so this puts them well below the detection capacity of the TRACE instrument calibrated to the 171 A pass band. So, the TRACE instrument is only capturing light from the Corona in the picture on your website. (Or, more accurately, the RD image on your website was generated from images of the Corona only). You aren't seriously suggesting that there are rigid/solid features like mountains in the Corona itself, are you?
No, we are not looking at *ONLY* the corona. Just as an ordinary discharge here on Earth can occur high in the atmosphere, or start low to the ground, so too, discharges in the solar atmosphere occur in many ways and at many "depths' in the atmosphere. Most of the discharges occur low in the atmosphere, far below the surface of the photosphere, and never reach the surface of the photosphere. They are relatively "small" discharges that might only cover say 200KM in size. Such a "small" discharge might/would show up as a single lit pixel in this RD image. The location of the base of the loops is where this argument is headed. Yes, some of the loops reach *HIGH* into the atmosphere, way into the corona. Most of them never leave the photosphere.
As best as I can tell from your other posts, you are suggesting that the CME events are indirectly revealing rigid features on the surface in the same way that we might observe the movements of air masses over mountains on the Earth even if we couldn't directly observe the mountains themselves. Is this correct?
A CME event isn't required to see the surface by the way, it's just handy that it occurred in the image so we can observe the "effect" on objects (things) in the image and we can talk about that effect. The primary light source(s) are the very hot coronal loops and that light is scattered in the plasma atmosphere. There is probably some light from the corona as well, but it's minor in comparison to the coronal loops themselves, and much of that light could simply be scattering from the loops. The surface becomes visible because the light sources are "rigid". There's not a lot of movement in the overall light/dark patterns of the original images other than the larger loops, therefore there isn't a lot of movement in the RD image. The exception occurs during the CME event, and just after the CME event.
But you also say flat out that the image on your website shows mountains and/or persistent rigid features. This is confusing.
The surface features create "rigid outlines" of surface terrain. While discharges occur all over the surface, they occur most in the higher altitudes (highest elevations) where the plasma flow is 'blowing" by and creating induction currents on the windward side of the plasma flow. The leeward side is less active. The various levels of surface terrain creates different rates of discharges near various features. The surface is visible, but only in an 'indirect way', due to the discharge patterns it create along the surface.
This is also at odds with your analogy of the "moving" stars in the background of the LASCO images. Those images are directly showing movement of "static" features.
Keep in mind that the "static surface" is rotating between images. The bright points (peaks) of the crust will move from left to right (this image is cropped by the way so you can't see the movement the way you can in an ordinary SOHO RD image). It's hard to tell exactly what's going on here in the 171RD image because it's been cropped and centered rather than let it simply rotate they way the original images rotate. The moving "stuff" in this case is the crust itself. It's moving left to right, meaning the "shadows" will typically be on the left, and the lit regions of the surface (the active regions) will light up mostly on the right. The plasma atmosphere is blowing from the bottom right toward the upper left, and that is also factoring into what we observe.
Are the mountains on the solar surface "moving" like the stars and therefore showing up in RD images,
Yes. They are moving left to right and the image is 'cropped and centered'. In other words you can't see the movement in the RD image because the left edge has been cut off and they centered the image on the CME area.
, here is what an RD produces in general terms for bright and dark pixels: