Stereo View of the Sun

Roland Piquepaille writes "NASA's STEREO mission will be launched in 2006 with the goal of imaging the sun and the solar winds in 3-D. According to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), two identical spacecrafts will be placed in different orbits to provide us with 'stereo' views of the Sun. After the launch in Spring 2006, the two observatories will be separated after a couple of months, one orbiting ahead of the Earth, and the other staying behind. So we should be able to see the Sun in 3-D in less than a year."

Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye

[Tackhead]

Nothing for you to see anymore. Please stumble along.

Re:Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye

[Shadow Wrought]

"I thought we weren't supposed to look directly at the sun?"
"Its cool. We have 3-d glasses."

Re:Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye

[plover]

"If you keep looking at the sun, you'll go blind!"

"Well, can I just do it until I need glasses?"

Re:Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye

[Shadow Wrought]

"The Sun in 3D sure is cool. I just wish we could see more of it."
"No problem! Try these X-ray Specs."

Re:Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye

[Haydn Fenton]

"The Sun in 3D sure is cool. I just wish we could see more of it."

sun.google.com, anyone? I mean why not, they're already after all the info on Earth [slashdot.org], as well as mapping [slashdot.org] the globe.. and the moon [google.com].

Re: Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye

[GillBates0]

And good luck trying to view the "stereo view" with the one remaining eye.

Re:Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye

[EpsCylonB]

cant we see the sun in 3d everyday ?

Re:Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye

[petermgreen]

the quality of stereo vision depends on the ratio of the distances between the two views and the distance to the object.

human eyes are good enough at it for everyday uses but not for judging depth in anything more than a few meters away. For longer distance ranging we rely on our knowlage of the size of objects.

Re:Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye

[ckaminski]

If, as expected, these spacecraft are going to orbit at the Lagrange points, then with an "eye-to-eye" distance of approximately 2*10^6 miles, and a distance of 93*10^6 miles to the sun, we get a ratio approximately 46:1.

Comparing my eyes at 3" in separation, to my ability to determine depth to at least 45", and you have a ratio greatly exceeding 150:1

I'd suggest that these spacecraft will do remarkably well in 3D compared to the human eye. Resolution, on the other hand, is a completely different argument.

Re:Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye

[ckaminski]

s/45"/45'/g

Re:Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye

[JohnFluxx]

3 days ago I accidently looked into a blue (440nm) 5mJ pulse laser beam. Burnt out a tiny bit of my retina. Now I really do have only one good eye :( I was really lucky and the damage is pretty tiny.

Such is life :)

Re:Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye

[JohnFluxx]

I didn't know that was so dangerous. I used to do it all the time. Partly because the moon is cool, partly because I loved putting in green filters and taking picture of a 'green cheese moon', but mostly because the moon was the only object I could see with the stupid non-automatic-focussing telescope. *grin*.

FWIW, my eye is getting better, but I think I'll permanently have a blind spot in the very centre of my vision. Means i can't read with that eye, but that's all. My worry at the moment is that I'll

Can't we do that already?

[johndierks]

Can't I see the sun in 3-D right now, by looking out the window?

Re:Can't we do that already?

[bizard]

Not to spoil a good joke, but no. Your eyes aren't far enough apart to get stereo vision past about 18 feet. You can move your head around to improve that (and your brain does a good job of faking it), but not good enough for stereo vision at 1au.

Another interesting part of the mission is that over a period of several years, the stereo craft will actually get further away from earth giving us an ever changing view. I just saw a talk at the Berkeley SSL by one of the scientists about the new solar weather modeling they will be able to do with it.

Re:Can't we do that already?

[ArAgost]

So will I get a nice stereo image of the sun... as seen from 18 feet apart?

Re:Can't we do that already?

[Darius Jedburgh]

Clearly your head isn't big enough. Stereo views of distant objects are just more things that are better when your head is the size of a planet.

Re:Can't we do that already?

[bizard]

better when your head is the size of a planet.

yeah, but then people give you menial tasks like escorting humans around and opening doors...it all gets very depressing

Re:Can't we do that already?

[Dirtside]

Head the size of a planet, and they ask me to stare at the sun. Unbelievable...

Re:Can't we do that already?

[tolkienfan]

That's not entirly accurate. With stereoscopic vision, you can determine, for example, that those stars are much further away than a little light, nearby. So stereoscopic vision works at those distances, it just doesn't allow you to distinguish the distances of a couple of stars, for example.

We can't do that already.

[Webmoth]

No, we can't see it in 3D when we look out the window. The reason is that our interocular distance - the spacing between our eyes, about 60-70 mm - is too narrow in relation to the distance involved. I don't recall the practical limit of this ratio, but beyond a certain range all objects appear to lie in the same plane. When you look at the moon, shading is your only clue that it is not a flat disk. (Does a single-image photograph of the moon have any less appearance of depth than when you look at the moon directly?) This is also why we can't tell just by looking how far away each star is. We can only tell by observing the stars at opposite ends of Earth's orbit -- effectively making the interocular distance millions of miles.

Stereo Movie ?

[Anonymous Coward]

will it be a stero movie ? taking a 3D image of a large ball of hot gas that changes shape by the minute is surely impossible

Re:Stereo Movie ?

[jamesgomez]

will it be a stero movie ?

RTFA

I doubt it, STEREO is simply an acronym for ... The two Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO)

Re:Stereo Movie ?

[MidnightBrewer]

If both probes take an image at the exact same moment, wouldn't the result be a stereo still image? Doesn't seem all that hard.

Looks like...

[AndreiK]

Hey, who turned down the detail level? All I see is a yellow sphere!

Re:Looks like...

[Mayhem178]

They didn't turn down the detail...someone turned up the contrast! I've been staring for 3 hours now and all I see is a big white dot!

Whoa, if I look away all I see is a big black dot. Damn you, you who messes with the contrast in my head!

Re:Looks like...

[Octopus]

Please use the Adobe Gamma Wizard applet in your neural net interface.

Has this Knowledge Base article helped you?

* No * Yes * I hate you.

The Old Technology Was Better...

[__aaclcg7560]

So a box with a pin hole is no longer cutting edge technology?

It's 3-D!

[SuperKendall]

You would need a box with TWO pinholes to equal this advance in technology!

The trick is making one pinhole red and the other blue...

Re:It's 3-D!

[__aaclcg7560]

I must be getting old... :P

Re:It's 3-D!

[mikael]

Now there's an idea ... I've seen camera obscura's [cliffhouseproject.com] which project an image onto a large table, but in monovision only. Would it be possible to have a camera obscura with two camera lenses, each of which polarizes the light onto the table. Then the scene could be viewed with a pair of 3D cinema glasses.

Re:It's 3-D!

[networkBoy]

you would need to bend the light via prisms, thus technically no longer being a camera obscura (though in all honesty I would say it was still obscure enough to qualify).
-nB

Re:Would you have to use prisims?

[networkBoy]

If I didn't have a list of projects a mile long I would try this as well.
One thing I've done before was to take two B&W slides, one with a red filter, the other with green. Two projectors and filtered glasses produces a remarkable result. Either:
A) Super-impose the two images and get a color projection
B) Filter the projections and offset them, viewers wear R/G glasses and see 3-D
-nB

Re:Would you have to use prisims?

[mikael]

A standard tourist class camera obscura simply requires three things: a lens (large polished convex crystal glass), a parabolic screen near the floor, and a mirror. The light is focussed by the lens, reflected by the mirror downwards and projected onto the screen. Depending upon the sophistication it is possible to add a few gears/control rod to rotate/tilt the lens/mirror around and optionally move the lens away/towards the mirror.

To view a stereo scene, you would need two lenses separated horizontally by

Re:The Old Technology Was Better...

[coldmist]

No, since you can't cut a pinhole with a 'cutting edge', it never was or ever can be considered such. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Stereo

[steveo777]

Wait, stereo is only two channels. Wouldn't Dolby make more sense?

Re:Stereo

[lightningrod220]

Yeah! Get Dolby involved, and they'll make it Surround Sun(TM).

Warning: The theater could become quite warm rather quickly. If so, run... fast.

Re:Stereo

[applef00]

Not to get pedantic, but that's exactly what I'm going to get. Stereo means multichannel, not just 2.

Re:Stereo

[drinkypoo]

Actually, it doesn't mean either. If you just look in the dictionary you will find that while stereophonic means two or more channels of sound, stereo is from the Greek stereos, or "solid" and stereoscopic means relating to a stereoscope, which specifically uses two images.

Re:Stereo

[adrianmonk]

Wait, stereo is only two channels. Wouldn't Dolby make more sense?

Perhaps THX would be even better. In fact, I think you could say that THX is all about seeing the Sun.

Re:Stereo

[adrianmonk]

Geez, was I too subtle? This being Slashdot, I thought at least somebody here would've seen movies by a certain director...

Re:Stereo

[c_forq]

Not until they improve their HD offerings. This is high tech, we need to go with DTS HD.

Re:Stereo

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

That would take "Blinded me with Science" to a whole new level.

What? Oh. Not THAT Dolby?

You young hooligans

[Dwonis]

Back in my day, "Dolby" meant "low pass filtering"!

How about 180 Degrees?

[Lev13than]

This 'stereo' view seems a bit silly, since we already know what it looks like from our perspective. I'd like to see a satellite positioned 180 degrees from earth along our orbit, so that we can finally get a look at the dark side of the sun.

Re:How about 180 Degrees?

[Dr. Zowie]

I know you're kidding -- but farside imaging exists now. Look here [stanford.edu] - it is a continuously updated false-color map of the Sun. Of course, the far side data are not a true photograph, but a reconstruction made from measurements of sound waves that propagate all the way through the star.

Re:How about 180 Degrees?

[Anonymous Coward]

You moron. There would be nothing to see: there's no light on the darkside of the sun.

Re:How about 180 Degrees?

[gardyloo]

You moron. There would be nothing to see: there's no light on the darkside of the sun.

      Duh. It could carry solar-powered flashlights!

I'm blind!

[geekster]

On both eyes!

Where in Orbit?

[kf6auf]

So how far apart are these going to be placed? I mean, are they going to be at the Lagrange points, which seem to be spread awfully far apart but might work, or somewhere else where the position is unstable and requires thrusters?

Also, what kind of instruments do these have? If we want, can we point them at other things and get useful pictures? Either way, it should be interesting.

Re:Where in Orbit?

[amightywind]

Check out the mission website [nasa.gov]. Cool stuff.

Re:Where in Orbit?

[frankie]

Yes, they'll use lunar slingshots to reach the Lagranges.

Rather than launching arbitrary pairs like this, I wonder if we could place large permanent scaffoldings at the L1 and L2 points with docking points to put dozens (hundreds?) of different probes out there without worrying about collisions.

Re:Where in Orbit?

[Bad D.N.A.]

"So how far apart are these going to be placed? "

They are both given a deltaV, one + and the other -. They move apart at something like 20 deg/year, one leading the Earth and the other trailing the Earth.

"Also, what kind of instruments do these have?"

The spacecraft have a pretty broad suite of instruments, in situ energetic particles, fields and waves plus coronagraphs for taking pictures of coronal mass ejections.

One of the problems we have with our pictures of CMEs right now is that they are

It burns! IT BURNS!

[digitaldc]

Stereo Suns are NOT cool.

Don't look at the Sun!

[fak3r]

It's an old one, but bears repeating:

Every time there is a solar eclipse you will find astronomers warning you to never look directly at the Sun. Even more importantly, you should not look at the Sun through a telescope unless you have a professional solar filter that covers the front of the telescope. Why?

The Sun is very bright and by focussing the light onto the back of your eye (the retina) with or without a telescope, you are putting a lot of energy (both optical light and infra-red) onto a tiny area. At some point in your life you may have tried to set paper on fire using a magnifying glass, so just think about that being done to the back of your eye. It isn't nice. Even more scarily is the fact that the retina of your eye does not have pain receptors, so you will not even feel the damage being done. It may not even become apparent until later.

I built the shoebox with the pinhole deal when I was a kid, and remember being scared to death on the day the eclipse occured!

Re:Don't look at the Sun!

[Dr. Zowie]

Ah, jeez, that old thing. Looking at an eclipse is quite a different affair than looking just at the Sun. Looking directly at the Sun with your naked eye is dazzling and maybe a little stupid, but it won't make you go blind: the human eye's minimum pupil size is coincidentally just small enough to handle the energy flux (which makes sense in the context of evolution). Eclipses trigger a bug in the eye's auto-aperture system, so that your pupil can end up wide open as you look at the mostly-eclipsed Sun. That can 'burn' pinholes in your retina.

more detail for parent

[Mark of THE CITY]

Iris size reacts to how bright something is in the visible spectrum, but don't react to the amount of UV, which does the damage. That's why good sunglasses have UV filtration.

ID

[Belial6]

But since our eyes were made by an "Intelligent Designer", doesn't that mean that we have been designed to go blind? Looking directly at the sun is the Intelligent thing to do!

Re:Don't look at the Sun!

[Dutchmaan]

Speaking of the pinhole viewing of eclipses.. Back in the early 90's there was a near total eclipse where I was going to school. My car was a convertible and it was a bright warm day in May..

Well, stopping at the drive up ATM which happened to be located under a young tree... I looked down and my car seat was covered with hundreds of tiny eclipses coming into and out of focus as the sunglight came through tiny "pinholes" made by the spaces between overlapping leaves which were slowly moving with the small breeze. It was quite a sight to behold right there in my car.

Example images...

[Animaether]

http://www.phys.uu.nl/~bassa/eclipses/20051003.htm l [phys.uu.nl]

Re:Don't look at the Sun!

[aug24]

When we had an eclipse here in 1999, the SAP team at my then contract stuck a sheet of paper up to the window and put a literal pin-hole in it. They were then trying to find the tiny, tiny projection of the sun on the floor. When I pointed out that all the holes in the ends of the blinds were casting little crescent shaped lit patches on the floor, they were amazed. Typical SAPpers, doing it wrong, I thought.

Justin.

But Momma, that's where the fun is!

[mencik]

Momma told me not to look into the eyes of the sun, but Momma, that's where the fun is....

Great news!

[leighklotz]

This sounds like great news to me. Solar cycle 24 [spacetoday.org] should be just about beginning [lund.irf.se] shortly after this thing gets operational. Try this RSS feed of solar weather [hfradio.org] from hfradio.org [hfradio.org].

somewhat current sun pic

[fak3r]

This image of 1,500,000C gas in the Sun's thin, outer atmosphere (corona) was taken March 13, 1996 by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. Every feature in the image traces magnetic field structures. Because of the high quality instrument, more of the suttle and detail magnetic features can be seen than ever before. (Courtesy ESA/NASA)

http://www.solarviews.com/raw/sun/eitfexii.jpg [solarviews.com]

Freaky looking, but damn cool!

Re:somewhat current sun pic

[RapidEye]

Here is a link to ALL of the different Sun Pictures in all sorts of wavelengths and formats:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/ [nasa.gov]

Yes, those are Live and RealTime Shots

Enjoy!

PS - and yes, that is a NEW set of sunspots getting ready to cross the sun!

Re:somewhat current sun pic

[fak3r]

Thanks, these are fantastic, and this animated one is awe inspiring! http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current _eit_304small.gif [nasa.gov]

Current sun pics

[Dr. Zowie]

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/latestimages.h tml [nasa.gov]

sun in stereo?

[vision864]

no thx certification?

At last!

[Garg]

We'll be able to see that mirror-image [rottentomatoes.com] planet [toonopedia.com] over there!

Re:At last!

[ashitaka]

Oooooh, Someone else remembers that movie! The effects by Gerry Anderson's team rocked, but the story now looking at it with much older eyes was pretty stupid.

Nerds.

[nathan s]

I guess there's some truth to the sallow or pasty scientist. Some people need to get out more!

(Yes, I know, eyes too close together, bla bla...) Still.;-)

Stupid frickn' NASA Wasting Money

[OzPeter]

(grumble, whinge, complain)

Fat lot of good its going to me .. I am blind in one eye, so I *can't* see in 3-D .. No matter how good the fricking cameras are .. I'll still see in 2-D. Waste of money .. blah .. blah .. blah ...

(/grumble, whinge, complain)

(And for the humour impaired .. yes that was not to be taken seriously .. even though I *am* blind in one eye)

(And for the spelling impaired .. American English is *not* my native tongue)

Re:Stupid frickn' NASA Wasting Money

[banda]

Hogwash! You can see in 3D. You can perceive depth and dimension with your one good eye. You just can't preceive stereopsis - the part of visual perception that ViewMasters and other stero imaging relies upon.

Steropsis is just one of about a dozen ways the human brain preceives depth. In fact, it's one of the least reliable and least useful, since it only works for objects at middle range with contrasting depths in the same scene, and only when things are relatively still.

Much more useful are the other cues

Re:Stupid frickn' NASA Wasting Money

[OzPeter]

*bastard* .. I *still* can't see 3d .. but that link was really interesting. Thanks

Re:Nonsense

[OzPeter]

And then I get dizzy after about 2 seconds, and have to shut my eyes and hold my head, and wait for the pain to go away. The end result is that in all practiality .. I *still* can't see 3-d (not for long any way)

Make your own 3D images of Mars and things

[saskboy]

http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/spotlight/3d01.html [nasa.gov]

NASA provides a guide for those with Photoshop, to make red / blue stereo images like you see on their website.

If anyone wants to convert the steps in the link to The Gimp 2.2, I'd be very greatful. I get stuck on about step 5 when I paste the 2 colour image into the other grey one and don't get the shaddowy red blue image that needs adjusting.

Re:Make your own 3D images of Mars and things

[Jugalator]

And they keep claiming there isn't life on Mars...

Pfft...
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/spotlight/images/3d01h. jpg [nasa.gov]

Backup?

[flyinwhitey]

I skimmed the articles, but I didn't see it.

What are the plans if one of these fails? Isn't the point having two of them?

SOHO daily views are best for now

[Lu]

Some of the best images of the sun's daily activity are to be found at SOHO's site, http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]. I check it daily.

If you choose "the sun now" and then the MPEG or animated gif of the LASCO C3 (full res is best - and I'm so sorry SOHO for doing this to you!!!) you can watch as a comet makes a close approach to the sun today. Happens every few days. Sometimes they make it out the back, but most get eaten up. We'll see with this one.

Re:SOHO - sorry, here's faster links

[Lu]

for GIF: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current _c3.gif [nasa.gov]

or JPEG: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current _c3.mpg [nasa.gov]

Sorry about that.

Launch at night

[sapped]

I hope they realise that they need to launch these craft at night otherwise the sun is going to burn them to a crisp.

Glory Be!

[Octopus]

Just when I was losing faith in NASA...

THE HUBBLE VIEWMASTER

http://www.worldwideslides.com/View-Master/sp.html [worldwideslides.com]

lagrange points

[prurientknave]

And so the battle for the control of the lagrange points begin!

I see no other reason for this sudden interest in a stereoscopic view of a big bright ball of plasma

google sun pro!

[digitallysick]

haha

This article is useless

[Hugonz]

I can just look out the window straight into it, and then I'll be able to seeNOOOOOO MY EYES!!!!!!!!!

Overkill?

[RomulusNR]

Why do we need to launch satellites to get stereo views of the sun?

Can't we just take a picture, wait for Earth to revolve a couple degrees around the Sun, and then take another picture?

Re:Overkill?

[Dynedain]

A couple of degrees = a couple of days.

Perhaps they'd like to capture events that occur in a matter of hours rather than days...

Re:Overkill?

[Derling Whirvish]

A couple of degrees = a couple of days.

Jeez, it rotates 360 degrees in 24 days. You don't have to wait for the earth to revolve around the sun a few degrees (slow), all you need to do is wait for the sun to rotate a few degrees (faster). Just take any two consecutive frames from one of those SOHO movies and there you are.

Re:Overkill?

[Dynedain]

What if it isn't the sun you are trying to capture, but the solar flares or solar wind that is coming off of it.

And again, if an event happens in a matter of hours (not days) then during the time between the two "frames" the event could have changed enough that you can't construct a 3D view of it because the frames don't match.

3D image here.

[Derling Whirvish]

I did what I said and extracted two consecutive frames from the SOHO images and 3d-ified them with red/cyan images (so you can use your 3D glasses from Spy Kids 3D or Shark Boy/Lava Girl or some other 3D DVD you have at home). The left eye is red, right eye cyan. Consecutive images were too flat, so this is from frame 170 and frame 172 of the animated gif. I dropped it down from false-color to black and white to make it easier to see.

What do you think?

http://img487.imageshack.us/my.php?image=3dsun9li. jpg [imageshack.us]

Some of the features have evolved. But the sphere shape is there as are some of the more macro features such as the corona and flares. The granules don't match up though.

That's from about five minutes of work.

Re:3D image here.

[Dynedain]

And I'm sure if thats all they wanted, they wouldn't have planned for a set of satellites.

Re:3D image here.

[Derling Whirvish]

But this was to illustrate how much simpler it would be to wait for the sun to rotate and take two images from that, rather than waiting for the earth to revolve around the sun. Remember the original post? "Can't we just take a picture, wait for Earth to revolve a couple degrees around the Sun, and then take another picture?" It was never to illustrate a substitution for the dual observatory program. Focus, people!

Re:3D image here.

[Dynedain]

Focus, people!

On slashdot? You must be new here...

Re:3D image here.

[Derling Whirvish]

I forgot to add that the left/right images are 12 hours apart.

Re:Overkill?

[Dynedain]

Oh, and the grandparent said wait for the Earth to rotate around the Sun... that takes around 365.25 days to go 360 degrees last I checked...

Re:Overkill?

[necro81]

I think that the plan is to place the satellites at the two lagrangian points that lie along Earth's orbit, which are +/- 60 degrees with respect to Earth. With 120 degrees of angular separation between them, they'll be able to resolve stuff with great depth perception, in close to real time (minus the transmission delays, computer time, etc.). In order for the earth to travel that same 120 degree arc along its orbit would take roughly four months, a much longer time scale than most interesting (or danger

Can't...Resist...Karma Burn

[emarkp]

Ze goggles! Zey do nuzing!

Stereo View?

[catdevnull]

All I see are these damn bright spots all over the place....

Is that the smell of my retina burning or is somebody cooking a squirrel?

Light

[msbsod]

It takes about 1 million years for the photons to travel from the sun's center to the outer shell due to multiple scattering (sun radius=695Mm), before they eventually reach earth after another 8.3 minutes. Why not appreciate the light in 3D!

Spoiler

[kiwioddBall]

Its largely spherical with flares shooting out. Can I have some money?

Wow! A 3D view of a hot orangy thing in space!

[grolschie]

...or maybe it's more whitey, but it don't sound as biqut2.