SOLER Tools: Multi-Instrument and Multi-Spacecraft Energetic Particle Plotters

Modern solar energetic particle (SEP) studies rely on data from a growing number of spacecraft and instruments, each offering unique perspectives on solar activity. To help researchers make sense of this distributed observational landscape, the SOLER project introduces a set of comparison plotters designed for efficient visualisation across multiple spacecraft or a single spacecraft’s instruments. The Multi-Instrument Plotter and SEP Multi-Spacecraft Plotter are the next in the series introducing the SOLER tools.

Fig. 1: Setting up the event and instruments is straightforward with drop-down lists and buttons so you know what options are available. This is a screenshot of the options available in the Multi-Instrument Plotter.

In the notebooks, both tools begin with a display of all the available options for datasets that can be selected with either drop-down menus or check buttons, as seen in Fig.  1. The relevant data is then downloaded and follow-up cells allow the user to further select certain energy ranges for the particle intensity data. The requested data is now ready to preview, as seen in Fig. 2 for the SEP Multi-Spacecraft Plotter.

Fig 2: The Multi-Spacecraft Plotter displays an array of energetic particle datasets using observations from five spacecraft for electrons and four spacecraft for protons. The energy range for each species is shown in the legend, corresponding to each dataset, together with additional optional information, such as instrument or viewing direction.

Finally, the user can make adjustments to the figures before saving, such as rearranging the panel order (multi-instrument plotter only), adding a line to indicate a flare start time in all the panels, or shading a region in a specific panel. Fig. 3 shows an example of these adjustments from the multi-instrument plotter with STEREO A for an event on 28 May 2021.

Fig. 3: The user can make adjustments to the produced figure. In this instance, the flare start time is marked with a dashed line at 22:19 UT on 28 May 2021, and an unusual rise in particle intensity is highlighted with red shading in the electron intensity panel and the magnetic field panel (03-07 UTC 29 May 2021).

Both tools are available as step-by-step Jupyter Notebooks that can be run either locally or without installation via SOLER’s JupyterHub (requiring only a GitHub account for verification).

The Multi-Instrument and Multi-Spacecraft plotting tools were designed and created by Otso Santala, Jan Gieseler, and colleagues at the Space Research Lab (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Turku).

To access the plotters: