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Automated Recognition of Sunspots on the SOHO/MDI White Light Solar Images

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Book cover Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (KES 2004)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3215))

Abstract

A new technique is presented for automatic identification of sunspots on the full disk solar images allowing robust detection of sunspots on images obtained from space and ground observations, which may be distorted by weather conditions and instrumental artefacts. The technique applies image cleaning procedures for elimination of limb darkening, intensity noise and non-circular image shape. Sobel edge-detection is applied to find sunspot candidates. Morphological operations are then used to filter out noise and define a local neighbourhood background via thresholding, with threshold levels defined as a function of the quiet sun intensity and local statistical properties. The technique was tested on one year (2002) of full disk SOHO/MDI white light (WL) images. The detection results are in very good agreement with the Meudon manual synoptic maps as well as with the Locarno Observatory Sunspot manual drawings. The detection results from WL observations are cross-referenced with the SOHO/MDI magnetogram data for verification purposes.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cybernetics, University of Bradford, BD7 1DP, UK

    S. Zharkov, V. Zharkova, S. Ipson & A. Benkhalil

Authors
  1. S. Zharkov
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  2. V. Zharkova
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  3. S. Ipson
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  4. A. Benkhalil
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. KES International, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, EC1V 4PY, London, United Kingdom

    Mircea Gh. Negoita

  2. Centre for SMART systems Engineering Research Centre, University of Brighton, BN2 4GJ, Moulsecoomb, Brighton, UK

    Robert J. Howlett

  3. School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Knowledge Based Intelligent Engineering Systems Centre, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, 5095, SA, Australia

    Lakhmi C. Jain

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© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Zharkov, S., Zharkova, V., Ipson, S., Benkhalil, A. (2004). Automated Recognition of Sunspots on the SOHO/MDI White Light Solar Images. In: Negoita, M.G., Howlett, R.J., Jain, L.C. (eds) Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems. KES 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3215. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30134-9_60

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30134-9_60

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-23205-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30134-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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