Linear Polarimetry of the Solar Corona during the Total Solar Eclipse of 8 April 2024: Multi-Band Observations and HDR Imaging
Abstract
High-Dynamic-Range (HDR) multi-band linear polarimetry of the solar corona during total solar eclipses provides a vital ground-based diagnostic tool for mapping plasma morphology and magnetic topology in the inner and middle corona. Extracting reliable polarimetric signals requires rigorous observational calibration, spatial co-alignment, and noise reduction via stacking. We report optical linear polarimetric observations acquired during the 8 April 2024 total solar eclipse from Dallas, Texas, USA, near solar maximum. Using a full-frame color CMOS detector paired with an 80~mm refractor, multi-band Red, Green, and Blue (RGB) images were recorded simultaneously across three polarizer orientations (−60∘, 0∘, and +60∘) using a 9-step exposure bracket (1/800 s to 1/3 s). We present an end-to-end data-reduction pipeline incorporating: (i)~a novel astrometric registration framework that reconstructs Sun-centric solar-disk coordinates via lunar-limb fitting, catalog star plate-solving, and ephemeris displacement calculations, achieving sub-pixel alignment; (ii)~a photometrically linear exposure-normalization HDR image synthesis; and (iii)~Multi-scale Gaussian Normalization (MGN) coupled with Polarization-to-RGB chromatic mapping. The resulting structurally enhanced polarization composites unravel a complex solar-maximum coronal topology characterized by helmet streamers and fine-scale striations traceable out to ∼3 R⊙. This framework establishes a high-resolution, photometrically calibrated dataset ready for subsequent polarized brightness (pB) and electron density inversions.
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BibTeX
@misc{singh2026linear,
title = {{Linear Polarimetry of the Solar Corona during the Total Solar Eclipse of 8 April 2024: Multi-Band Observations and HDR Imaging}},
author = {Suprit Singh and Paras Sharma and Bharti Arora and Shivam Burman and Chaitanya Gandhi},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.26231},
eprint = {2610.26231},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.26231},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Linear Polarimetry of the Solar Corona during the Total Solar Eclipse of 8 April 2024: Multi-Band Observations and HDR Imaging
AU - Suprit Singh
AU - Paras Sharma
AU - Bharti Arora
AU - Shivam Burman
AU - Chaitanya Gandhi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/19
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.26231
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.26231
AB - High-Dynamic-Range (HDR) multi-band linear polarimetry of the solar corona during total solar eclipses provides a vital ground-based diagnostic tool for mapping plasma morphology and magnetic topology in the inner and middle corona. Extracting reliable polarimetric signals requires rigorous observational calibration, spatial co-alignment, and noise reduction via stacking. We report optical linear polarimetric observations acquired during the 8 April 2024 total solar eclipse from Dallas, Texas, USA, near solar maximum. Using a full-frame color CMOS detector paired with an 80~mm refractor, multi-band Red, Green, and Blue (RGB) images were recorded simultaneously across three polarizer orientations (−60^∘, 0^∘, and +60^∘) using a 9-step exposure bracket (1/800 s to 1/3 s). We present an end-to-end data-reduction pipeline incorporating: (i)~a novel astrometric registration framework that reconstructs Sun-centric solar-disk coordinates via lunar-limb fitting, catalog star plate-solving, and ephemeris displacement calculations, achieving sub-pixel alignment; (ii)~a photometrically linear exposure-normalization HDR image synthesis; and (iii)~Multi-scale Gaussian Normalization (MGN) coupled with Polarization-to-RGB chromatic mapping. The resulting structurally enhanced polarization composites unravel a complex solar-maximum coronal topology characterized by helmet streamers and fine-scale striations traceable out to ∼3 R_⊙. This framework establishes a high-resolution, photometrically calibrated dataset ready for subsequent polarized brightness (pB) and electron density inversions.
ER -