At the start of the week AR 11429 appeared over the NE limb and immediately produced a M-flare. Observations were thus concentrated on this region. A Major Flarewatch was called on 5 March. Significant flares from AR 11429 during the week occurred at:
2 Mar 17:29, M3.3
4 Mar 10:29, M2.0
5 Mar 02:30, X1.1
5 Mar 19:10, M2.1
5 Mar 19:27, M1.8
6 Mar 12:23, M2.1 (EIS?)
6 Mar 21:04, M1.3 (EIS - yes)
7 Mar 00:02, X5.4 (EIS - no)
9 Mar 03:22, M6.3 (EIS?)
At the end of the week (9, 10) operations had to be cancelled due to a satellite avoidance maneuver.
Scheduling the flare hunting can be complicated because of the following factors:
The hunter study runs for multiples of one hour. The response study runs for one hour.
Consider for example the inter-synoptic period which is usually
about 11h 30m. My solution was to schedule the hunter study for 5
hours, leave a gap of 20 min, and then schedule the hunter again for 6
hours. Note that the hunter tends to run 2.5 min faster than predicted,
so the gap will actually be more like 30-35 min. This gap lowers the
possibility of the response wiping out the next hunter, but also
doesn't leave much gap in the coverage.
Note that Hinode had fixed pointing during this time-frame. I adjusted each FLAREDOP_EIS for solar rotation based on STEREO-B images.
Update: No big flares took place during this period, but the study
should have caught a long duration C2 flare at about 18 UT.
No observations today.
No observations today.
FLAREDOP_EIS was run again on AR 11429 during 09:43-12:57.
The flare hunter study (Flare266_Hunter01) was run for the following
periods:
6th: 09:45-13:41 (caught the M2 flare? - yes)
6th: 18:41-04:40 (caught the X5 flare? - no)
The first of these was interrupted at 12:38, and so it must have
caught the M2 flare near this time. The second of these was interrupted
at 21:10, catching a M1 flare.
Flare hunting continued until 04:40 today, and a further run was
scheduled for 06:12-16:11. No flares occurred during this latter period.
FLAREDOP_EIS was scheduled for the period 18:15-21:22. It may have
caught a weak C flare. UPDATE: yes, Jeff has studied the data and it seems to have caught a C1 flare at 18:50.
A final flare hunting run was scheduled for 21:30-05:29 (may have
caught a C5 flare at about 03:00? - no).
Flare hunting from OP 2 continued until 05:29 today.
The plan for OP 3 was affected by preparations being made for a possible satellite avoidance maneuver. Hinode will approach within 114 m of another satellite and so a maneuver may have to be made. The decision will not be made until 9 March, after I have completed the OP 3 plan.
All observations prior to 4 UT on 9 March are safe and will not be
disrupted. A gap has been left between 4 and 9 UT (for possible revised
plan upload) and all observations after 9 UT are at risk of
cancellation if the maneuver goes ahead. UPDATE: the maneuver went
ahead and so operations after 9 UT were cancelled.
Prior to a maneuver a sensitivity monitoring study needs to be run and so SYNOP006 was scheduled at 09:38 UT on 8 March.
AR 11429 was tracked with the study CORE_FLARE_TR120x120 (Del Zanna)
for the periods 13:45-17:58 and 18:18-03:02 UT.
A spectral atlas (Atlas_30) of AR 11429 was scheduled at 03:09. This study caught a M6 flare.
UPDATE: the spacecraft maneuver went ahead and so subsequent
operations were cancelled.
No operations today due to spacecraft maneuver.
