Starting at 1700 UTC (1 pm ET) today and lasting until 0300 UTC tomorrow (May 25, which is 11 pm ET May 24), we will be running a simulation of the observations to be taken during the Venus transit on June 5. AIA will be switching modes to take different sequences of images to allow the scientists to study the instrument and Venus. HMI will try out its transit mode as well but will return to normal operations after about an hour of special mode.
AIA will be taking three types of images during the test and transit. Every 96 seconds it will take a set of full-disk images. In between it will provide partial images (cropping out the southern polar region) at the usual cadences and striped images at extremely high cadences. Examples of these images are at left that were taken during a shorter test held May 23 between 1900 and 2015 UTC.
During the transit we will be providing movies of images taken during the transit at http://VenusTransit.gsfc.nasa.gov.
Enjoy the show!
Partial Image in 193
Striped Image in 193