The National Science Foundation to provide critical funding to nationwide eclipse data-gathering effort. The Citizen Continental America Telescopic Eclipse project, or Citizen CATE for short, will be deploying at least 56 identical telescopes across the path of totality thanks to the financial backing of the National Science Foundation.

The NSF is providing the largest contribution for the equipment needed by the project, and it will be used to help fund 30 CATE sites at academic institutions. With additional help from corporate sponsors Daystar Filters, Celestron, Mathworks and colorMaker, as well as over a dozen groups, schools and individuals, the network of CATE sites will span from coast to coast. Training for the project was funded by NASA.

The Citizen CATE program, which is run by the National Solar Observatory, aims to produce a 90 minute movie of the lowest layers of the solar corona during the eclipse - a region of the solar atmosphere that has always provided challenging for astronomers to image.

"This dataset is going to be extraordinary" says Dr. Matt Penn, the Principal Investigator for the program. "Normally during a solar eclipse, we get about 2 minutes of data in that region closest to the photosphere [solar surface]. But Citizen CATE will allow us to get an hour and a half of data!"

Although 90 minutes of data may not seem that much, this region of the atmosphere has always been inherently difficult to observe. The very bright photosphere, or solar surface, overpowers all of the interesting features present in the faint, wispy corona. We can only see the corona when the photosphere is covered up, much like shading your eyes from a bright light to see something fainter nearby. Dr. Valentin Pillet, Director of the National Solar Observatory explains why the eclipse is such a special event for solar astronomers.

"Normally, we use a specialized instrument called a coronagraph, which artificially blocks out high intensity light from the photosphere. However, because our solar occulting disk [disk to block out solar surface light] is never too far from the cameras, we see strange effects near the edge of the Sun.

"That means we cannot trust observations close to the surface, in the lowest layers of the atmosphere. With a solar eclipse, the Sun and Moon are 150 million kilometers away, which reduces these edge effects to almost nothing. That means we can see what is happening down in those lowest layers very clearly".

Citizen CATE is taking this a step further by chasing the eclipse across the breadth of the nation. Rather than using one telescope that travels across the country, it will station almost 60 identical telescopes at regular intervals along the path. As the shadow of the moon passes from horizon to horizon, the next telescope will be ready to take up the observation, resulting in a dataset like we have never seen before.

"The upcoming solar eclipse offers an exceptional opportunity for this kind of widespread community involvement in STEM research," said program director David Boboltz at the National Science Foundation (NSF), funding the science. "The Citizen CATE project hits the sweet-spot for NSF support by combining cutting-edge research with a unique citizen-science component that will broadly impact both the scientific community and the general public."

The Citizen CATE team consists of not only NSO scientists, but dedicated students and volunteers. The undergraduate students have been diligently developing hardware, software, and analysis tools to process the expected Citizen CATE data as quickly and cleanly as possible.

This process began with the undergraduate team traveling to Indonesia for a test run during the 2016 eclipse, where they successfully tested the CATE equipment and gathered test data to develop the processing pipeline. Sarah Kovac, an undergraduate member of the Citizen CATE team from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale explains:

"Traveling halfway across the world to see totality was an unforgettable experience that taught me more than I ever could have learned in a classroom. Bringing home real data gave us a better understanding of what we'll see in 2017 and how to capture data as smoothly as possible, making the process easier for our volunteers in August."

The eight students, ranging from freshmen to recent graduates, hold positions of responsibility and are gaining critical skills in instrumentation, data analysis, project management, and communications.

The other critical CATE team members are the state coordinators and volunteers who will be responsible for the successful implementation of the program on the day of the eclipse. These invaluable volunteers are educators, amateur astronomers, and other interested people who are invested in seeing CATE succeed.

"I'm honored to be an integral part of the CATE team. As an informal educator I knew that I wanted to share the eclipse experience on a broad scale." says Lynn Powers, the state coordinator for Idaho.

"When I found CATE two years ago and learned about this coast to coast project with all the implications of how citizen scientists could contribute to the greater knowledge of solar science, I knew that I wanted to be a part of this historic team. I am excited that as an amateur, my work up to and including collecting data during the eclipse, has far reaching significance."

In an unusual twist, NSO will be donating the telescopes procured for the eclipse to the volunteer observing teams after the event. This will go a long way to creating a lasting legacy of astronomy and solar science across the nation.

If you would like to donate to the Citizen CATE project, or are interested in purchasing a telescope to become a CATE site, visit here

Tweet

Friday Night's Deep Penumbral Lunar Eclipse
Palm Coast FL (SPX) Feb 08, 2017
Lunar eclipses are enjoyable celestial events that can be seen from a wide geographic area. But we haven't experienced a total lunar blackout since September 2015, and the next one won't come until January 31, 2018. In the meantime, skygazers can enjoy a special kind of lunar eclipse taking place on Friday night, February 10th. Instead of plunging into the dark inner core of Earth's shadow (call ... read more

Related Links
National Solar Observatory
Solar Science News at SpaceDaily