whats the dot?

[Fractalius]

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c3/512/latest.jpg

This photo is linked to the latest photo on soho right now of lascoC3. It will change I guess when they update the photo. So check it out what is it?

[Yvonne]

VERY interesting!!

[Wind]

Venus, they say.

[Ernest]

Yes, if the dot you're referring to is the white area to the right in the image, that'd be Venus.


Occasionally, planets appear in LASCO images and they, too, have a nearly horizontal motion. However, planets can move left or right through the field-of-view and can be faster or slower than the background stars. A list of expected planetary transits is provided at the 'C3 Transits' link. This link also provides dates of expected asteroid appearances in LASCO images. Overall, if you believe you have discovered a comet and its motion is nearly horizontal, chances are you've actually located a star, planet, or asteroid. Check the 'C3 Transits' link for known objects or use an ephemeris program to identify known stars, planets, asteroids,or comets. Click on the image below to see examples of stars and planets visible in a LASCO image.
Note: The "rings" (or "wings") seen either side of the planets are not real. They appear because the planets frequently saturate the CCD, causing a bleeding of pixels along a single row.
Source: http://sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=cometform

For a complete list of planets visible for SOHO this year you can see this transit list: http://sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=transits/transits_2013

[Referee]

What are these?

M4U2VkKr3YQ

[Hervé]

Science Center - Where is STEREO?

Positions of STEREO A and B for 2013-03-03 00:10 UT


http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/temp/846327796.gif


http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/temp/261677209.gif


http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/where/where_is_stereo.gif

For LASCO "dots" see this diagram: http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/images/C3_desc.html



LASCO (http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=content/intro) is on board the SOHO (http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/about/about.html) satellite:

SOHO's Orbit:

An Uninterrupted View of the Sun
SOHO moves around the Sun in step with the Earth, by slowly orbiting around the First Lagrangian Point (L1), where the combined gravity of the Earth and Sun keep SOHO in an orbit locked to the Earth-Sun line. The L1 point is approximately 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth (about four times the distance of the Moon), in the direction of the Sun. There, SOHO enjoys an uninterrupted view of our daylight star. All previous solar observatories have orbited the Earth, from where their observations were periodically interrupted as our planet `eclipsed' the Sun.

SOHO's halo orbit (http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/about/images/halo_orbit.gif) (GIF)
SOHO's transfer orbit (http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/about/images/orbit-fdf.gif) (GIF)