Synoptic Images of the Sun

Each SWAP synoptic map is constructed by extracting 3 pixel wide strips from individual images, taken at random intervals throughout a Carrington Rotation. Each 3 pixel wide strip is averaged into a single strip to remove artefacts in an image that might be created by events such as cosmic rays and Solar Energtic Particles striking the detector, or from radiation from the Earth's radiations belts and the South Atlantic Anomaly (check out PROBA2's orbit here). A Carrington Rotation's worth of images are then put together side by side to create an image such as that seen in Figure 1. The black vertical stripes that occaisionally appear in the synoptic maps indicate missing data created by Calibration and off-pointing campaigns.