A Simple Way to Estimate the Soft X-ray Class of Far-Side Solar Flares Observed with STEREO/EUVI

TL;DR

This paper presents a simple empirical method to estimate the soft X-ray class of far-side solar flares using B-streak lengths in STEREO/EUVI images, enabling remote flare classification.

Contribution

The study establishes a new empirical relation between B-streak length and GOES X-ray flux, allowing for quick classification of far-side flares observed by STEREO.

Findings

B-streak length correlates with GOES X-ray flux.

Estimated classes for 65 far-side flares match previous methods.

B-streaks can help reconstruct flare time histories.

Abstract

Around the peaks of substantial flares, bright artifact nearly horizontal saturation streaks (B-streaks) corresponding to the brightest parts of the flare sources appear in the STEREO/EUVI 195 A images. We show that the length of such B-streaks can be used for the solution of an actual problem of evaluating the soft X-ray flux and class of far-side flares registered with double STEREO spacecraft but invisible from Earth. For this purpose from data on about 350 flares observed from January 2007 to July 2014 (mainly exceeding the GOES M1.0 level) both with GOES and STEREO, an empirical relation is established correlating the GOES 1-8 A peak flux and the B-streak length. This allowed us for the same years to estimate the soft X-ray classes for approximately 65 strong far-side flares observed by STEREO. The results of this simple and prompt method are consistent with the estimations of Nitta et al. (Solar Phys., 288, 241, 2013) based on the calculations of the EUVI full-disk digital number output. In addition, we studied some features of the B-streaks in impulsive and long-duration flares and demonstrated that B-streaks in several consecutive EUVI images can be used to reconstruct a probable time history of strong far-side flares.