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The Digitized Archive of the Arcetri Spectroheliograms. Preliminary Results from the Analysis of Ca II K Images

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The Digitized Archive of the Arcetri Spectroheliograms. Preliminary Results from the Analysis of Ca II K Images A&A 499, 627–632 (2009) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/200811406 & c ESO 2009 Astrophysics The digitized archive of the Arcetri spectroheliograms. Preliminary results from the analysis of Ca II K images I. Ermolli, E. Marchei, M. Centrone, S. Criscuoli, F. Giorgi, and C. Perna INAF - Osservatorio astronomico di Roma, via Frascati 33, 00040 Monte Porzio Catone, Italy e-mail: [email protected] Received 24 November 2008 / Accepted 6 March 2009 ABSTRACT Context. The increasing interest in the recovery of historic data and the availability of new hardware resources is leading to projects to digitize photographic archives of astronomical observations. In addition to preservation, solar archives are digitized because the observations stored in such archives have the potential of providing unique information about solar magnetism, which can improve knowledge about long-term solar changes. Aims. The solar tower of the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory produced synoptic observations of the solar atmosphere from 1926 to 1974. The photographic archive contains about 13 000 plates of full-disk Ca II K and Hα spectroheliograms acquired during about 5000 observing days. The program for the digitization and distribution of the images of this archive was carried out at the Rome Astronomical Observatory and is now complete. Methods. Nearly 13 000 plates were scanned with a commercial device and stored on DVD, as well as in a database accessible online. Image processing was developed for the reduction of the data and their photographic calibration. Results. The obtained digital archive provides the astronomical community with the Arcetri historical solar observations and with measurements of solar features identified in such observations. As an example, we show some preliminary results concerning the temporal variability of facular regions identified in the time-series of Ca II K observations. Conclusions. Existing programs studying solar activity and variability, as well as new scientific projects, will benefit from the Arcetri digital archive, since it extends the temporal baseline of digital full-disk solar observations, and it provides data for the inter-calibration of results obtained from measurements performed in similar observations. Key words. Sun: chromosphere – Sun: faculae, plages – Sun: activity – techniques: image processing – astronomical data bases: miscellaneous 1. Introduction In this paper we describe the content of the Arcetri photo- graphic solar archive (Sect. 2), the digitization work (Sect. 3), There is an increasing interest in the digitization of observations and the procedures developed for reduction (Sect. 4) and photo- stored in astronomical plate archives, both for the preservation graphic calibration of the obtained data (Sect. 5). We present of their content and for their distribution to researchers. For in- some results obtained by analyzing the digital images of the stance, solar archives store synoptic observations of the full-disk Ca II K time-series (Sect. 6) and briefly mention the next steps solar atmosphere, which can be employed to study long-term so- of our work (Sect. 7). lar variability. Several projects devoted to the digitization of solar pho- tographic archives began in the last decade. Mt Wilson and Koidakanal Ca II K spectroheliogram time-series have been dig- 2. The Arcetri solar archive itized (Foukal 1996; Ulrich et al. 2004; Lefebvre et al. 2005; Makarov et al. 2004), and other similar series are now be- The Arcetri photographic archive contains 12 917 plates of full- ingprocessedaswell(Dorotovic et al. 2007). In this frame- disk Ca II K and Hα spectroheliograms, which were acquired work, we present the digital archive of Ca II K and Hα spec- during 5042 observing days at the “Donati” solar tower tele- troheliogram observations taken at the Arcetri Astrophysical scope of the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory (Florence, Italy), Observatory from 1926 to 1974. The interest in the digitization from 24 July 1926 to 15 September 1974 (Godoli & Righini of the Arcetri solar photographic archive is that the stored obser- 1950). In particular, the archive contains 5976 and 6941 Ca II K vations are among the oldest such data taken in Europe (for a list and Hα observations, respectively. There is an average of about of synoptic programs carried out before 1950, see Mouradian & 100 Ca II K and 120 Hα plates per year during the whole pe- Garcia 2007). Moreover, the Arcetri archive shows the peculiar- riod. The number of plates per year quadruples from 1956 to ity of having a large fraction of plates carrying specific informa- 1961. At the time of observation, the instrument had a grating tion for the photographic calibration of the observation. On the of 600 lines/mm and a ruled area of 100 mm × 100 mm, with a other hand, the temporal coverage of the Arcetri time-series and dispersion of 0.33 mm/Å at 3934 Å. the number of stored plates are rather small with respect to those Several instrumental changes occurred during the over forty of other archives of synoptic solar observations (Ermolli et al. years in which the Arcetri spectroheliograph was utilized. These 2007b). include the use of additional lenses and changes of the slit Article published by EDP Sciences 628 I. Ermolli et al.: The digitized archive of the Arcetri spectroheliograms positions, which improved the image definition and monochro- Table 1. Transmission values of the Zeiss K 58 step filter from the ob- maticity, and decreased the stray-light level. For instance, ob- servation log-books of the Arcetri Observatory. servation log-books showed that on 23 July 1938 the testing of an additional field lens started to improve the image defini- λ = 6000 Å 100% 72% 45% 28% 19% 11% tion. This lens was utilized starting from 20 January 1939. In the λ = 4000 Å 100% 68% 42% 29% 20% 14% same period the utilization of filters at the first slit also started. A Schott UG2 filter was utilized for the Ca II K observations from 15 October to 30 December 1938, then replaced with a Schott 3. The digitized archive UG3 filter. A Schott RG2 filter was utilized for the Hα observa- tions from 15 October to 29 July 1939. Moreover, on 25 May A preliminary study for the definition of the characteristics of the 1953, the position of the 2nd slit was modified, decreasing its digitization work was carried out by simultaneously testing three distance from the plate from 1.3 cm to 2 mm. We note these devices on a sample of plates extracted from the archive and instrument changes because they mark a few discontinuities in covering 1% of the dataset. These devices were two commercial the data collection. The instrumentation that was used to acquire scanners (Epson Perfection 1200, Epson Expression 1680 pro) these observations is no longer available. and a system equiped with a 1k × 1k CCD camera, developed at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. The selected plates The plates stored in the archive have different dimensions were extracted from the Ca II K time-series; we chose two plates and contents. The ones acquired before 1936 measure 9 × 18 cm for each available year, one acquired in winter, the other one in and have two images of the Sun with a diameter of 6.5 cm (13% summer. This was meant to take into account potential effects of of the whole archive); later plates measure 9 × 12 cm and have seasonal variations on image content. Test images of the selected just one image of the Sun with a diameter of about 6.5 cm (87% plates, as well as of a linear target, were acquired under different of the whole archive). 5% of the data is stored on acetate nega- settings of the three devices. After analyzing the obtained im- tives. The size of the solar disk image on most plates corresponds ages, we decided to perform the digitization work by using the to an image scale of about 0.033 mm/arcsec. Epson Expression 1680 pro commercial scanner, at 1200 dpi and Observatory log-books show that 36 different photographic 16 bit significant data. products from 8 different manufactures were used during the The selected setting corresponds to a scale of 0.62/dot in whole period of observations. The spectroheliograms obtained most of the produced digital images. Due to the limitations of the after 22 February 1938 carry calibration exposures obtained typical local seeing, which during the best conditions was worse through a Zeiss K 58 step filter. This step filter was calibrated than 2, with a higher scanner settings (e.g. 1600 or 2400 dpi), both photoelectrically and photographically specially for the no space information content would be added to the acquired study presented by Caccin et al. (1970). At first, only one pho- image. On the other hand, lower resolution settings (e.g. 600 or tometric mark was stored on the plates, by placing the Zeiss fil- 800 dpi), would not allow us to resolve some details which oc- ter on the first slit and gathering the radiation emitted from the casionally could be present in the observations. Moreover, even solar-disk center. Starting from September 1947, two photomet- though most analyzed plates seemed to be either under- or over- ric marks were stored on the plates by changing the width of the exposed, we decided to store the digital images as 16 bit grey- first slit. From August 1948 onwards, three photometric marks scale data. We considered that a reduction of dynamic range in were stored on each plate: the first one was obtained with the using 8 bits would occasionally result in loss of photometric in- radiation emitted in the Ca II K or Hα from the solar-disk center, formation from the original observation. In fact, the effects of the second one in the radiation of the near-continuum to the line such a reduction depend on the exposure and potential defects in question, and the third one always in the same continuum, but of individual plates, and thus have to be evaluated with care for by doubling the width of the first slit.
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