Imaging the Solar Corona during the 2015 March 20 Eclipse using LOFAR
- 1Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
- 2Astrotec Holding B.V., The Netherlands.
- 3Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Ireland.
- 4University of Helsinki, Finland.
- 5Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), The Netherlands.
- 6Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, Germany.
- 7Royal Observatory of Belgium, Belgium.
- 8Observatoire de Paris, France.
- 9University College London, UK.
The solar corona is a highly-structured plasma which reaches temperatures of more than ~2MK. At low radio frequencies (≤ 400 MHz), scattering and refraction of electromagnetic waves are thought to broaden sources to several arcminutes. However, exactly how source size relates to scattering due to turbulence is still subject to investigation. This is mainly due to the lack of high spatial resolution observations of the solar corona at low frequencies. Here, we use the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) to observe the solar corona at 120-180 MHz using baselines of up to ~3.5 km (~1--2’) during a partial solar eclipse of 2015 March 20. We use a lunar de-occultation technique to achieve higher spatial resolution than that attainable via traditional interferometric imaging. This provides a means of studying source sizes in the corona that are smaller than the angular width of the interferometric point spread function.
How to cite: Ryan, A. M., Gallagher, P. T., Carley, E. P., Morosan, D. E., Brentjens, M. A., Zucca, P., Fallows, R., Vocks, C., Mann, G., Breitling, F., Magdalenic, J., Kerdraon, A., and Reid, H.: Imaging the Solar Corona during the 2015 March 20 Eclipse using LOFAR, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-18173, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-18173, 2020.
