PH3010

Observation and Analysis of Solar Limb

Darkening
Harrison Evans
Project Supervisor: Dr. Stewart Boogert
October 20, 2011

A model DMK 21AF04 CCD video camera was used to capture

video data of the Sun transiting the aperature of a LX-200 SchmidtCassegrain telescope using filters of = 699, 501 and 426nm. The
results were used to fit 2nd order source functions, after which it was
possible to infer the temperature of the Sun as a function of optical
depth.

Introduction

Dr. Heinz Nickel in conjuction with Dietrich Labs in Germany conducted

an experiment on Solar Limb Darkening from 1986-1990 at the Kitt Peak
National Observatory in Arizona, USA to plot 5th order polynomial source
functions for 30 different values of ranging from 303.327 to 1098.950nm.[1]
The purpose of this project was not as complex as Dr. Nickels, his team
intended to analyse the Suns limb darkening as a function of time over a
period of years; in this project the goal was to observe the limb darkening
and to analyse the data as a function of optical depth. Not to mention that a
much smaller aperature was used - 0.10m diameter as opposed to 4m at the
Kitt Observatory. The reasoning behind comparing this experiment to the
observations at the Kitt Observatory is that if the results obtained in this
project are similar, using a much more approximate fit - 2nd order rather
than 5th order - it will be reasonable to assume that the data is reliable.

Observational Method

Observations were made using a 12-inch LX-200 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope in the RHUL Physics Department Observatory. The telescope was
covered with custom-made solar Baader filters using thick cardboard to cover
90% of the lens. The remaining 10% was covered by aluminium solar foil
which removes 99.9% of solar flux.[2]
A non-scientific DMK 21AF04 camera was used to capture videos at
15fps, using filters corresponding to red, green and blue wavelengths of visible
light of the sun tracking across the telescopes field of view. To centre the sun
in the telescope, the hour angle of the scope was adjusted until the telescopes
shadow was visibly parallel to the domes shutter windows. The sun was
then centred visually in the finder scope mounted on the telescope, and the
tracking function on the telescope was enabled to ensure the Sun remained
at a fixed position in the scope. The Sun was then centred equatorially,
such that the centre of the finder scope would track across the Suns equator
if panned left or right. The Camera was focused using the Suns limb for
comparison.

Theory

To begin with it may be appropriate to define the physics of limb darkening

to understand why it occurs. The Sun, as well as any star, is a gas sphere in
Local Thermal Equilibrium (LTE) in a state of constant stable nuclear P-P
chain burning. As such, take the luminosity to be more or less constant from
any defined spherical shell around the Sun.
Not all photons are emitted from one shell around the Sun, they are
emitted in a gradient that decreases the further away you get from the photosphere. The photosphere is defined as the spherical shell region within a
star from which a distant observer receives light, and it proceeds from an
optical depth of 0 (limb) down to a value of approximately 2/3. After this
point the gas becomes essentially opaque to photons.[3] The temperature increases the further you travel into the photosphere and Stefan-Boltzmanns
Law says that the light from the hotter regions is more intense.[4]

j = T 4

(1)

Fig 1.1 in [4] shows that photons travelling from the limb come from a
shallower region inside the photosphere than photons travelling the lesser
distance straight towards us. Hence the photons travelling from the limb
will be less intense because this area is cooler.

3.1

Defining the intensity

Defining the intensity of the suns radiation is the next step. The full derivation can be found in [4] under section 1.3.2, for the final result integrate the
flux over a sphere of radius r around a star:

Z
L =

F dA = 4r2 F

(2)

Where the 4r2 F term is only valid if the flux is independant of direction.
Integrating over all gives the total luminosity.

3.2

The equation of radiative transfer

Now one must consider how radiation traverses matter, or more precisely
how radiation traverses matter that is itself radiating. For any element of
matter ds the incident intensity will be defined as I . This intensity can
be scattered or absorbed while it traverses the element of matter, hence an
absorption coeffiecient is included . The fact that the matter element ds
can also radiate photons itself must be addressed also, for which an emmission
coefficient j is included. One can express intensity I in terms of both
seperately [4]:
dI = I ds

(3)

dI = j ds

(4)

Or Equations 3 and 4 can be combined to obtain the rate of change of

intensity:
1 dI
= j I
ds

(5)

Defining the source function S as the ratio of the absorption and emission
coeffiecients gives:
1 dI
= S I
ds

(6)

This is the equation of radiative transfer, and is a vital component in

forthcoming calculations.
The final variable that must be considered is vertical optical depth which
describes the thickness of matter that radiation traverses from a normal
within the sun as it travels towards an observer. If the normal on the suns
surface produces an angle relevant to an observer, abbreviating such that
= cos the equation is:

dI ( , )
= I ( , ) S ( )
d
4

(7)

3.3

Measuring the source function

The following equation (8) is derived in [4] in section 1.3.5 and gives an
approximation of the source function in terms of the surface intensity at
the centre of the Suns disc I (0, 1). These values are given in Table 1.1
in [4] section 1.3.5, due to the fact the department lacks accurate enough
equipment to measure them.
S ( ) = I (0, 1)

m
X

an n

(8)

n=0

The first three terms of this power series will be used, creating a second
order polynomial to use in the linear fit model, which comes later.

3.4

Temperature as a function of optical depth

The Planck function, B (T ) defines the intensity of a radiation field is in

complete thermal equilibrium with a black body of temperature T :
I = B (T ) =

2hc2
(5 ehc/kT 1)

(9)

Furthermore, in thermal equilibrium I = S hence it follows from equation

9 and the fact that local thermal equilibrium is assumed, that
S ( ) = B (T ). By rearranging equation 9 for temperature the following
relation is obtained for temperature as a function of optical depth:

T ( ) =

hc/k
2
ln(1 + 52hc
)
S ( )

(10)

The only method left out here is the use of Mathematica 8.0 to perform a least squares fit of the data in order to obtain the coefficients of the
polynomials for the source functions of each seperate value of .

Data analysis

The most important results are listed in this section. It would be impractical
to paste vast tables of astronomical data so only a snippet will be included
here. All plots used for the final conclusions will be included.

4.1

Extracting video data

Mathematica 8.0 was used to extract lists of pixel values from the videos
taken in the observatory. A square area of interest was isolated for each
frame of video and the subsequent pixel values were exported as .dat files:

Figure 1: A screen shot of the Mathmatica 8.0 notebook used

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4.2

Normalising the data

The sum of pixel values in a defined 50 by 50 pixel region were saved, and
using Microsoft Excel the values were normalised from 0 - 1 such that instead
of pixel values, Relative Intensity was used. The next step was to define the
solar limbs by defining cut off points on each side of the plot, this was done
by removing data values for values below a relative intensity of 0.3 for each
value of . The resulting plot is shown below in Fig 2
1.1

rednorm.dat
greennorm.dat
bluenorm.dat

1
0.9

Relative Intensity

0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

-1

-0.5

0.5

Position over solar equator (r/R)

Figure 2: Normalised relative intensity vs position over solar equator

Because the y axis has been normalised the errors are now propagated
using the following formula:

s
normalised =

(normalised) 2 2
(normalised) 2 2
) count + (
) maxcount (11)
(count)
(maxcount)

And are, as a result, much smaller than they would be without

normalisation.

4.3

Fitting the source functions

Now that the intensity fits are looking nice, the next step is to linearly fit the
data to the polynomials mentioned in section 3.3 and equation 8.The source
function (equation 7) is a function of and sopthe x-axis must ve redefined in
Fig 2 to be in terms of. Since = cos = 1 Rr this is simply a case of
minusing the x values from 1 and then square rooting. An example of what
a plot of this looks like is given below in Fig 3:
1.0

Relative Intensity

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

0.6

0.8

1.0

(cos)
1.0

Relative Intensity

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.2

0.4

(cos)

Figure 3: as a function of Relative Intensity for = 426nm

The method of least squares was then used to fit a 2nd order polynomial to
the data sets for each , which resulted in the following coefficients(3 sig
fig):
(nm)
426
501
699

a0

a1

a2

0.113
0.122
0.165

1.150
0.956
1.146

0.201
0.0942
0.636

Table 1: Coefficients
The plot below shows how these coeffiecients were obtained, by fitting a
quadratic to the data:
1.0

Relative Intensity

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.2

0.4

(cos)

0.6

0.8

1.0

Figure 4: Demonstration of the method of least squares for = 426nm

4.4

Uncertainties of least square fitting

To calculate the error on a least squares fit, it is important to understand the

process[5]. In the case of this experiment, the data is being fitted to some
quadratic function y = a0 + a1 x + a2 x2 . The error on fitting this function to
a set of x, y data points is given by[6]:
(a0 , a1 , a2 ) =

n
X

(a0 + a1 xi + a2 x2i yi )

i=1

(12)

As is obvious from Equation 12, the coeffiecients obtained for each value
of can be propagated through this formula to obtain the error on each
function:
Hence the adjusted equations for errors on this experiments source functions are as follows:
S=426nm (a0 , a1 , a2 ) =

n
X

(0.113 + 1.150xi + 0.201x2i yi )

(13)

(0.122 + 0.956xi + 0.0942x2i yi )

(14)

i=1

S=501nm (a0 , a1 , a2 ) =

n
X
i=1

S=699nm (a0 , a1 , a2 ) =

n
X

(0.165 + 1.146xi + 0.636x2i yi )

(15)

i=1

See Fig 5 below for an example of a source function with propagated

uncertainty
9e+013

Red2.dat

8e+013

Source function (S)

7e+013
6e+013
5e+013
4e+013
3e+013
2e+013
1e+013
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

mu(cos)

Figure 5: Source function error estimation

10

0.9

Note that this is analytical error - not experimental error. This is the
uncertainty of the method used to fit the source function, and is the best
approximation of the overall error on the source function.
As can be seen from Fig 5 the error increases as the function nears the
saddle point and then from extrapolation it is known that the error decreases
once it passes the saddle point. This is due to the nature of Equation 12. A
higher order polynomial fit would have decreased errors, as the error boundaries would be focused around the saddle points and minima of the function.
For this reason, the results from Dr.Nickels experiment [1] will have far less
error than the 2nd order fits used in this project.

4.5

Temperature as a function of optical depth

Using the source functions defined by Equation 8, the following plot shows
temperature as a function of optical depth:

426nm
501nm
699nm

8000

Temperature (K)

6000

4000

2000

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

Optical Depth ()

Figure 6: Plot of temperature vs optical depth

Note that this is a plot without definitive errors, hence no error bars.
The following formula would be used to find the uncertainty on measured
intensities of solar radiation by taking a series of repeated images of the
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centre of the Suns disc. This data was and as such could not use Equation
16 to calcualte measurement errors:
v
u
n
u 1 X
2
t
(Ii I )
(16)
=
n 1 i=1
However, it is possible to propagate analytical errors from the source
functions using the error propagation formula as shown in Equation 17
r
T
T = ( )2 S2
(17)
S
To achieve this, Equation 10 must be partially differentiated and then
inserted into Equation 17:
T
=
S

hc
k
2
ln(1+ 2hc
)
5 S

)
=

2c3 h2
2
kS(S5 + 2c2 h) ln2 ( 2hc
+ 1)
5 S

(18)

After propagating the error on the source function from Equation 12

through Equation 17, and after estimating a list of temperature values using
Equation 10 along with the source functions, one arrives at the following
plot:
7000

redtemp.dat

Temperature (K)

6500

6000

5500

5000

4500

4000

0.2

0.4

0.6

Optical Depth ()

0.8

Figure 7: Estimated analytical errors on a plot of temperature vs optical

depth for = 699nm

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Bear in mind that this is an analytical approximate of what the true

errors on the temperature would look like if the corret data had been taken.
As such no assumptions/conclusions will be drawn from Fig 7.

4.6

Further analysis: Sunspot

To estimate the temperature of a sunspot, a subsection of video data was

isolated illustrating a sunspot and a pixel profile was drawn. Using Equation
1 the following can be derived (where S = Sun and SS = SunSpot):
ISS
IS

4
TS4
TSS

(19)

 I T 4  14
SS S
(20)
IS
To evaluate the TSS an estimate of the intensity and temperature of the
sun was taken either side of the sunspot, the result being TSS 4500K.
TSS =

5
5.1

Conclusion
Overall results

The purpose of this experiment was to plot the temperature of the Sun as a
function of optical depth in order to determine the effect of solar limb darkening. This was achieved as shown by Fig 6, and although the uncertainty
of this plot is undefined, a good approximation of the order of magnitude of
these errors was attempted.
The effect of solar limb darkening as defined in the script [4] is that the
intensity and hence temperature reduces as a temperature of optical depth
the further out from the photosphere of the sun you go, this is clearly shown
in Fig 6 for three distinct values of . It is also stated in the script that the
photosphere is only defined until at 23 of one optical depth , after which the
Sun becoems effectively opaque to photons, hence the temperature at this
optical depth is defined as the surface temperature of the sun. Extracting
a value for this from Fig 6 gives Tsurf ace 5810K. The accepted value for
Tsurf ace is 5778K [1][7], and as shown from the approximated errors in Fig 7,
the difference of 32K is within one standard deviation of this result.

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5.2

Further work

If more time was available for further development of this project, video
data for more values of would be taken by using a more varied set of
astronomical filters. Furthermore, a video tracking the Suns central intensity
would be captured to allow for proper errors to be propagated through to
the final temperature fit. There were many forms of experimental error in
this experiment that were too unpredictable to be quantified, namely the
methods used to centre the telescope on the Suns equator: given more time
different methods should be adopted to give a chance of quantification of
these errors.

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References
[1] Solar Limb Darkening:
Solar Physics 153:91-114 (1994) http://www.springerlink.com/content/tt2x334110g08053/fulltext.pdf retrieved 19.10.2011
[2] Baader
Planetarium
Solar
Filters:
http://www.baaderplanetarium.com/pdf/astro solar test e.pdf - retrieved 20.10.2011
[3] Carroll and Ostlie: Modern Astrophysics. Addison-Wesley. (1996)
[4] Project Script: Dr.S.Boogert, Dr.G.Cowan
[5] Probabilistic Uncertainty, Least Squares Fitting, and Graphical
Analysis: http://sst.nsu.edu/phy160/labs/measure2.pdf - retrieved
20.10.2011
[6] Least Squares Fit of a Quadratic Curve to Data: John Mahaffy.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/h/jhm/f90/lectures/lsq2.html retrieved 20.10.2011
[7] Sun Fact Sheet: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/sunfact.html
- retrieved 24.10.2011

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