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HomeSolarOnline ToolsCulgoora Type II Tool Saturday, Dec 14 2024 20:17 UT
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Culgoora Type II Tool

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About the Culgoora Solar Radio Spectrograph Type II Tool Display

The display consists of the current real time Culgoora Spectrograph image with a row of three buttons at the top of the image, "clear", "compute speed" and "fundamental".

Selecting shock type

The shock type can be selected by clicking on the button labelled "fundamental" (default) located at the top of the display. A two item drop down menu appears, and shock type (fundamanetal or harmonic) can be selected by using the left mouse button. The shock type should be selected before entering the shock points.

Entering shock points

To enter shock points for speed computation click along the shock in the image at several points from top left to bottom right. Each point clicked is marked by the frequency (F) at that point and the number of seconds (S) from the first point clicked. The "Newkirk" model used for conversion from frequency to altitude in the solar atmosphere has an upper frequency limit of 540 MHz if harmonic is chosen and a limit of 280 MHz if fundamental is chosen. Points clicked above these limits will not be displayed.

Computing shock speed

To compute shock speed click on the button labelled "compute speed". The result is displayed top right of the image.

Clearing input

The "clear" button clears all input data.

Also, when using this tool it is important to note that there are no time discontinuities in the data image.

Why is it done?

Type II radio burst shock speeds can give an indication of the travel time of a coronal mass ejection from the Sun to the Earth. You can view some example events from the drop down list, and also select hourly images for the current day.

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