Kitt Peak Solar Magnetograms And Helium Maps

Daily and synoptic solar maps capture the Sun's magnetic field and helium line strength from 1985 onward. Data originates from the National Solar Observatory's Vacuum Telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona. Observations are structured by Carrington rotation, with synoptic maps representing one full solar rotation each.

Use Cases

• Train models to predict solar flare activity using synoptic magnetogram maps (m-prefixed FITS files).
• Analyze correlations between the 1083 nm neutral helium line strength (h-prefixed FITS files) and solar magnetic cycles.
• Study the evolution of magnetic field zero-level bias by comparing data before and after Carrington rotation 1762.
• Create time-series forecasts of solar activity using daily averages of the magnetic field from mag.dat ASCII files.

Strengths

• Synoptic maps provide full-disk coverage with 360 longitude and 180 sine-latitude rows per Carrington rotation.
• Data series spans from Carrington rotation 1601 for magnetic measurements and 1611 for helium observations.
• Daily observations are available in both high-level ASCII summaries (mag.dat, he.dat) and reduced-resolution FITS images.

Limitations

• Magnetic data from rotation 1762 onward has a known positive bias of approximately 0.3 gauss requiring correction.
• Synoptic maps since 1985 are in a slightly less precise 16-bit integer format compared to the original 32-bit floating point versions.
• Daily image resolution is reduced from the original 1 arc sec per pixel to 4 arc sec per pixel.

Provenance

Source

National Solar Observatory (NSO) Vacuum Telescope, Kitt Peak, Arizona.

Collection Method

Daily full-disk solar observations processed into synoptic maps weighted by Carrington rotation.

Time Range

From 1985 onward, with series starting at Carrington rotation 1601 (magnetic) and 1611 (helium).

Geography

Solar observations (full disk).