Moderated Iron sun with Aether batteries...

[Michael Mozina]

Incorrect. The answer is A.

Well, based on what I learned from the GIF files that Zig mentioned, that is a possibility.

I'll be honest here. The files Zig suggested were very interesting to me and not what I expected. The alignment of the exterior parts (iron, helium, photosphere) looks to match the standard solar model IMO, but the overlay of the 1700A, 1600A, and 4500A looks to me to favor a plasma separated and "layered" plasma model. I can't really say a lot more without FITS files, but I have to say that Zig's comments, and yesterday's perusal of the GIF's had a significant impact on me. I'm not sure what to think now.

The jagged dark edges of the iron line images are certainly not 'artifacts' in any way shape or form. It could be however that the folks that made that composite image "lopped off" more of the chromosphere than simply subtracting out the photosphere as I originally assumed. The positioning of the HeII emissions could be misleading in the composite image.

What still makes no sense to me is the fact that the 1600A, 1700A and 4500A all show a different diameter disk, with 4500 being the LARGEST. That's consistent with a plasma layered model, but that is not what I expected to see if the SSM were correct.

In short, after going through tons of GIF's yesterday based on Zig's suggestion, I can't make them fit either my model or the SSM. ?????

Hmm. I guess I need FITS files to say much more at this point unless you can tell me why the 1700A and 1600A both have a *SMALLER* diameter than 4500A. Any suggestions?

 

[Michael Mozina]

I said ... "does not have that green feature in it"
Then you said ... "I see an "opaque" (GM style) horizon on that image, with the same "jagged" edges and everything."
Which part of the word "GREEN" was too much for you to handle?

The "green" color is not an artifact either Tim. The color on the horizon directly relates to the colors that are assigned to the iron lines. The only thing that *might* be an "artifact" is the distance that is displayed from the opaque limbs to the chromosphere emissions as phunk stated yesterday . I can't justify that space between the iron lines and the chromosphere based on the GIF files.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Can anyone tell me why the diameter of the 1700A disk might be *SMALLER* than the 4500A disk?

 

[phunk]

Can you link to the two images you're talking about?

 

[Michael Mozina]

Can you link to the two images you're talking about?

Sure.

http://aia.lmsal.com/public/firstlight/20100418_000108/

http://aia.lmsal.com/public/firstlight/20100418_000108/f4500.gif
http://aia.lmsal.com/public/firstlight/20100418_000108/f1700.gif
http://aia.lmsal.com/public/firstlight/20100418_000108/f1600.gif

If you layer the two images as Zig suggested yesterday, you'll notice that the 1700A image produces a much smaller disk. The 1600A produces a *THIRD* sized disk that fits between the 4500A and 1700A. That's consistent with a plasma separated (non opaque) photosphere, but I don't know how to explain that with the SSM.

 

[phunk]

Sure.

http://aia.lmsal.com/public/firstlight/20100418_000108/

http://aia.lmsal.com/public/firstlight/20100418_000108/f4500.gif
http://aia.lmsal.com/public/firstlight/20100418_000108/f1700.gif
http://aia.lmsal.com/public/firstlight/20100418_000108/f1600.gif

If you layer the two images as Zig suggested yesterday, you'll notice that the 1700A image produces a much smaller disk. The 1600A produces a *THIRD* sized disk that fits between the 4500A and 1700A. That's consistent with a plasma separated (non opaque) photosphere, but I don't know how to explain that with the SSM.

Yup, I measure just under 28000km difference in diameter between the 1700A and 4500A images. But that's assuming the images are scaled properly to match each other, which I doubt. Features near the limb don't line up between the 4500 and 1700 images, they move outward by the same amount as the scale difference between the images.

I also see differences between the images with the same filter but at different times. Did the sun's diameter change a couple percent in a few days?

 

[Ziggurat]

If you layer the two images as Zig suggested yesterday, you'll notice that the 1700A image produces a much smaller disk. The 1600A produces a *THIRD* sized disk that fits between the 4500A and 1700A. That's consistent with a plasma separated (non opaque) photosphere, but I don't know how to explain that with the SSM.

I do: the images do not cover identical solid angles. Relative sizes don't mean anything here. My first post was basically a lie: the direct superposition of images was never valid to begin with.

But that doesn't mean you can't learn something from any of those raw images. You can. In fact, you can learn something which is absolutely critical. None of the images show the sharp, smooth boundary that GeeMack pointed out here:

That boundary is not real. It is the result of a photoshop filter, used to enhance image contrast. The only image with a smooth boundary is the 4500 Angstrom image, but that's bright on the inside, not the outside.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Yup, I measure just under 28000km difference in diameter between the 1700A and 4500A images. But that's assuming the images are scaled properly to match each other, which I doubt. Features near the limb don't line up between the 4500 and 1700 images, they move outward by the same amount as the scale difference between the images.

I also see differences between the images with the same filter but at different times. Did the sun's diameter change a couple percent in a few days?

Well, if the various GIFS aren't scaled properly then there isn't really much else I can learn from them. Various amounts of mass flows from the surface (wherever that might be) to the heliosphere could in fact change the various sizes of the plasma layers depending on the current flow going on at that time. I would in fact expect them to be a bit different during active vs. quiet times.

 

[Michael Mozina]

I do: the images do not cover identical solid angles. Relative sizes don't mean anything here.

Could you point me to the SDO specs about the different solid angles related to different channels. That was not my impression from going through the link I posted here a few weeks ago.

 

[Ziggurat]

Well, if the various GIFS aren't scaled properly then there isn't really much else I can learn from them.

Yes, there is. You can learn that the sharp border in the composite image which you interpreted as the surface of the photosphere is an artifact of image processing, and does not appear in any of the individual images.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Yes, there is. You can learn that the sharp border in the composite image which you interpreted as the surface of the photosphere is an artifact of image processing, and does not appear in any of the individual images.

If they aren't scaled properly, then how can I tell that from the GIF's Zig? If it's valid to compare the iron lines and photosphere in those files, why can't I also compare the 1700A to the 4500A in the same way and also learn things?

You don't seem very consistent.

 

[Ziggurat]

If they aren't scaled properly, then how can I tell that from the GIF's Zig?

Because you don't need to compare them to each other, you can tell by looking at them individually. That sharp boundary doesn't exist on ANY of them, because it's an image processing artifact. It doesn't matter how you composite them, it doesn't matter how you scale them to match, you will never reproduce that sharp, smooth boundary unless you apply an artificial photoshop filter, as GeeMack said NASA told him they did. That sharp smooth boundary is not the surface of the photosphere, it's the edge of the photoshop filter.

If it's valid to compare the iron lines and photosphere in those files, why can't I also compare the 1700A to the 4500A in the same way and also learn things?

Neither one is valid, Michael.

You don't seem very consistent.

Because I lied. And you didn't catch it. But you should have, and that's my point. You aren't examining any of this stuff critically enough.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Because you don't need to compare them to each other, you can tell by looking at them individually. That sharp boundary doesn't exist on ANY of them, because it's an image processing artifact.

It is not. I can create the same "sharp border" by subtracting the 4500A diameter "disk" from the HeII image. That's what I *ASSUMED* they did in the press release image. It creates a ring that looks exactly like the one in the image, with the same "smooth' inner edge.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Because I lied.

I could not possibly know if the GIF's were properly scaled without examining them closely ZIG. I examined them closely enough to see that I couldn't make them fit with either solar model.

I don't have access to the FITS files Zig. Beggars like me take what they can get from the public domain at the moment. I can't "know" what's a lie and what's the truth without doing the research on the images. Sorry if that bugs you, but that's the best I can do with the images I have to work with so far.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Sure.

http://aia.lmsal.com/public/firstlight/20100418_000108/

http://aia.lmsal.com/public/firstlig...0108/f4500.gif
http://aia.lmsal.com/public/firstlig...0108/f1700.gif
http://aia.lmsal.com/public/firstlig...0108/f1600.gif

If you layer the two images as Zig suggested yesterday, you'll notice that the 1700A image produces a much smaller disk. The 1600A produces a *THIRD* sized disk that fits between the 4500A and 1700A. That's consistent with a plasma separated (non opaque) photosphere, but I don't know how to explain that with the SSM.

Yup, I measure just under 28000km difference in diameter between the 1700A and 4500A images. But that's assuming the images are scaled properly to match each other, which I doubt. Features near the limb don't line up between the 4500 and 1700 images, they move outward by the same amount as the scale difference between the images.

I also see differences between the images with the same filter but at different times. Did the sun's diameter change a couple percent in a few days?

Some time ago now - many pages I expect - Tim Thompson wrote an excellent post on PR images and science images (actually data).

A bit later MM posted his hilarious "empirical" 6-step method for proving there is a solid iron surface below the chromosphere (or some such) using RD images (and I posted one or two comments on just how hopeless this is, in terms of the MM's declared objective).

Yet we still see MM using non-science images!

What makes this all so astonishingly ironic is MM's bald, bold, unambiguous declarations concerning the role of maths in observations and empirical science in general (you haven't forgotten have you dear reader?)

To take just one, tiny, example:

To determine where any feature that you unambiguously and objectively identify in the data (image) from the output datastream from one waveband channel of one AIA telescope is - in relation to a disk of radius r, centered at location (x, y) on the sky, at a distance d from the SDO - involves an enormous amount of work, and a great deal of math (much of it far, far more advanced than any MM has himself used, in any post here in JREF, to date).

To determine the spatial relationship between two such features - one from channel A on telescope A, the other from channel B on telescope B - is doubly challenging.

Now the people who designed, built, calibrated, and operate SDO and the AIA put a huge amount of effort into addressing these questions (and many more besides of course), and have published a great deal of material on their solutions, and from this material you can at least begin to develop a plan to make estimates of the relative separation of a pair of features, one in a channel A/telescope dataset, the other in a channel B/telescope B dataset.

If you want to produce a robust estimate, one that is independently verifiable (where one 'line' is in relation to another 'line', say), you will have to do a lot of detailed, quantitative work. Curiously (or not), MM has declared that all such work is invalid, and that he can overthrow standard solar models merely by visual inspection of PR images.

What sorts of things might you have to address, to make robust estimates of the projected separation of two features in separate AIA datasets, two 'lines' say?

Here are some:
* geometric distortion (crudely, the image of a perfectly rectangular grid will not be perfectly rectangular; how to map one to the other?)
* SDO's distance from the Sun
* image scale (crudely, how many arcsecs does one pixel correspond to?)
* unambiguous, quantitative, objective definition of the location of a feature (think of how you'd go about defining the position of a crater on the Moon, say, from an image taken through your backyard telescope)
* registration (crudely, what is the difference between the centres of two images, and how much is one rotated with respect to the other?)

On top of that, to be of any use scientifically, you need to make robust estimates of your uncertainties, and explain - objectively, in a manner that is independently verifiable - how you accounted for the known uncertainties (if you aren't familiar with 'uncertainty', think 'error') ... etc.

Who wants to bet that MM hadn't even thought of most of this (before he read it, assuming he does), and is essentially clueless wrt actually *doing* any of the above?

 

[Michael Mozina]

One simple RD composite image based on the gold LSMAL high cadence/averaged RD technique, and the base of the chromosphere should tell us a lot DRD. Anytime you "insiders" want to push the process along, I've already made my "prediction" on the outcome. I don't really know what more I might do now based on the information I have access to at the moment.

 

[Ziggurat]

It is not. I can create the same "sharp border" by subtracting the 4500A diameter "disk" from the HeII image.

Thus creating an image artifact.

That's what I *ASSUMED* they did in the press release image.

Just like you assumed that all the images covered identical solid angles. And that's the problem: you keep assuming things when you don't know if they're true. In this case, they are not.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Thus creating an image artifact.

That is *NOT* an image artifact Zig. That gives us an idea of where the photosphere ends and the chromopshere begins along the limbs.

Just like you assumed that all the images covered identical solid angles. And that's the problem: you keep assuming things when you don't know if they're true. In this case, they are not.

I didn't "assume" anything Zig, I checked it out for myself. I found that I could not get it to match either solar model, so it is only logical that the GIFS are not scaled properly and I cannot use them to determine the outcome of this debate as they current exist.

The only thing that I know is "true" is that the GIFs in their current form really don't help me decide anything without doing more research.

 

[Ziggurat]

I could not possibly know if the GIF's were properly scaled without examining them closely ZIG.

But you assumed they were anyways. Which was my point. You never should have assumed they were, because nothing ever actually indicated they were.

I can't "know" what's a lie and what's the truth without doing the research on the images.

The problem isn't that you didn't know that I was lying. Hell, it didn't matter if I was lying or just mistaken. The point is, it should have occurred to you that scaling could be an issue, and that nothing about the images (or my claims about the images) indicated that the scaling had been checked. Likewise, you shouldn't trust the publicity photo you've based your entire argument on, because you don't know how it was made.

 

[Michael Mozina]

But you assumed they were anyways. Which was my point. You never should have assumed they were, because nothing ever actually indicated they were.

I didn't *ASSUME* anything Zig, I simply compared them all and realized they don't jive with any solar model in their raw form. That's all I "assumed".

I could not know if you were "lying" or not until I checked out *ALL* of the images. You'll note I didn't just stop with the two images you suggested, now did I?