GONG/UD Monsoon Shutdown

 The GONG station at the Udaipur Solar Observatory, India, will be commencing its annual monsoon shutdown this week.

 As the site Pyranometer indicates, the sky quality is degrading.

 

GONG operations at Big Bear, California

GONG at Big Bear Solar Observatory is currently down due to the electric power outage. Bear Valley Electric Service (BVES) informed the customers that Southern California Edison (SCE) implemented a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) affecting BVES supply lines. This is due to high winds and fire conditions forecasted in the region. Currently the PSPS warning is issued until Sunday, June 22nd, 12:00 a.m.

GONG data processing update

Processing of the network-merged daily velocity and magnetogram images, p-mode-coefficient time series, and ring-diagram analysis products for GONG month 303, and the p-mode frequency data products for central GONG month 302 is completed. The results are currently going through the final quality control before releasing it to the public.   

P.S.: As of 2025.06.23, the GONG data products have been cleared and are good to be used.

GONG data are used to predict magnetic connectivity for NASA's Parker Solar Probe

 

For the third time, NASA's Parker Solar Probe spacecraft reached its record-breaking perihelion (closest distance to the Sun on its orbit) of 9.86 of radius of the Sun.  Perihelion (encounter) 24 occurred on 2025/06/19 at 09:31 UT. Synoptic magnetogram shows the predictions of magnetic connectivity between solar surface and the spacecraft based on GONG and SDO/HMI observations. 

Summar solstice

 Dark shadows that may appear this time of year in some GONG H-alpha images (first photo) may be tree branches, not clouds. As we approach summer solstice and the sunset reaches its most northerly position, this part of the horizon may be obstructed by trees as in the second image taken by Tim Purdy at GONG site at Big Bear Solar Observatory, California.

 

From a travel journal

For those who traveled to a recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society, here are some snapshots of murals in downtown of Anchorage. Some of these murals are visible from the main streets (like the first one, Denai'na mural by Crystal Worl, across the street from the convention center). Other are hidden in the back-alleys (second photo showing walruses by Richard Zeigler - Ziggy). Third photo shows Ziggy working on his new project - in memory of  people who  died on streets of Anchorage from freezing cold. He is an interesting character. The last photo shows the Alaska’s Marine Life Mural by Robert  Wyland, who created 100+ murals around the world showing whales.

"Nature India" highlights recent finding based on GONG data

 

Nature India, a digital magazine providing information on India’s science, highlighted the recent findings by Indian scientists in collaboration with the National Solar Observatory (NSO) about the effect of the Coriolis force on flows around sunspots, and how these flows shape the Sun’s rotation beneath the visible solar surface. The findings were made possible by the long-term of observations from the NSF's Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG).

GONG data-based time-lapse videos of solar activity cycle

John Boyd, an amateur astronomer and a retired Mathematician who used to work in the space program for NASA has recently created a time-lapse video spanning from 2020 to 2024  using the H-alpha Gong images. The videos, which are available via John's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@Ha656nm,  are intended for the outreach for local astronomy club (the Santa Barbara Astronomical Units, SBAU) and educational purposes.

Did this filament eruption cause the CME?

Coronal mass ejection, which erupted from the Sun on 15 June 2025 near the Northern pole (marked by the white arrows in LASCO C2 and C3 coronargaph images, the middle and right panels) does not seem to have a clear source region. M8.5-class flare associated with active region 14114 (bright area East/left of central meridian in the left panel) occurred much later. It was, however, a small filament (marked by a white arrow in the left panel), which slowly rose and eventually erupted. Was this filament a possible source of this CME?  Watch the videos and judge for yourself. Also, note the time - filament disappeared at 3:45 UT. At about 3:10 UT, two small bright ribbons started developing near filament's south end. Similar flare ribbons albeit much larger is size are typical for so called two-ribbon flares indicating an energy release at the reconnecton site above the magnetic field neutral line. Filaments overlay the neutral lines of large-scale magnetic field. The first indication of the CME in LASCO C2 coronagraph can be noticed at 4:12 UT. LASCO imagery provided courtesy of NASA and ESA.

GONG/LE interruption

Early this week (7- 9 June), GONG/LE observations were interrupted by a damage to the camera trigger cable.  The root-cause was identified by the NISP engineering team via remote troubleshooting, and while the cable cannot be repaired, the solution was found to restore the operations. During the troubleshooting, the H-alpha observations may show a rapid image rotation. The observations are back to normal starting 11 June, 2025.

Single-site synoptic maps

In addition to network merged synoptic maps, NISP Data center now creates single-site synoptic maps. These maps are used to monitor the magnetogram data products as derived using newly deployed EVT cameras and to evaluate the impact of merging data taken with two different type of cameras into a network-merged data products. Two images provide the examples of single-site (GONG/LE, top) and network-merged (bottom) synoptic maps for Carrington rotation (CR) 2296 recently created by Thomas Wentzel. Two maps are nearly identical, which indicates a  good level of uniformity of observations taken at different sites.

Special session on "Three Decades of Helioseismology and Magnetic Field Observations with GONG: Discoveries, Modern Studies, and Future Plans"

The 246th AAS meeting (joint with the Laboratory Astrophysics and Solar Physics Divisions) took place the of week 8-12 June 2025 in Anchorage, Alaska. A special session dedicated to GONG 30 years of operations explored the significant contributions of GONG to helioseismology and solar magnetic field studies, and discussed the future of synoptic observations in these fields beyond GONG and HMI. Photos from that session show (top to bottom): Sarbani Basu (Yale University) summarizing "Three decades of helioseismology with GONG", Sushanta Tripathy (NSO), presenting results of comparative analysis of subsurface flows from GONG and HMI, Lekshmi Biji (NSO) discussing high-latitude torsional oscillations, and the participants of this session with  Irina Kitiashvili (NASA Ames) asking questions.  

Our dynamic Sun

 

Solar atmosphere constantly changes. The changes could be large as during the last week M-class flare, or they could be relative small. Watch filament near the North polar region (upper part of image) slowly rising and then erupting. LASCO coronagraphs do not seem to show a clear signature of a CME eruption associated with this partial filament eruption.

Observations at GONG/TD are impacted by Calima.

Observations from GONG/TD (Canary Islands) are impacted by Calima. This may appear as a slight blurring of H-alpha and other images. Calima is a meteorological phenomenon, when the prevailing winds blow dust from the Sahara desert towards the Canary Islands and farther in the Atlantic Ocean. Images from the NOAA's GOES 19 satellite taken on 24 May 2025 show the dust tail extending from the West cost of Africa all the way to North America. Calima usually happens in Summer, and each episode may last 3-5 days.

GONG/TD camera deployment is completed

 NISP engineering team had completed the camera deployment/preventive maintenance (PM) trip. The PM flag was turned off, and the system was set to perform a set of calibrations and restart normal operations. Examples of observations taken with new EVT camera (left to right): line-of-sight magnetogram with black/white corresponding to negative/positive polarity magnetic field, broadband/continuum image showing sunspots, and image of solar chromosphere as observed in hydrogen H-alpha spectral line.

Congratulations to the team!