SDO is GO

SDO will experience a lunar transit on November 7, 2018. Here is a movie from the Flight Operations Team that shows SDO, the Sun, and the Moon during the transit. This transit lasts from 2024-2116 UTC (3:24-4:16 pm ET) and covers at most about 44% of...

Anything looking at the Sun tends to heat up. The SDO instruments have been looking at the Sun for 8.5 years. Although they are designed to look at the Sun for a long time, some changes still happen.
For example, the coatings on the HMI instrument housings and optical surfaces have been degrading slowly but steadily, causing the instrument to absorb more solar radiation and heat up. The front surface of HMI’s telescope is now hot enough that the...

Can't get enough solar eruptions, especially from SDO? Here's a nice video from the Solar-Terrestrial Center of Excellence in Brussels, Belgium. They call it Spectacular Solar Eruptions during Solar Cycle 24. Many of my favorite eruptions are included...

Between 1315 and 1900 UTC (9:15 am - 3 pm ET) On September 12, 2018, SDO performed the EVE field of view and HMI/AIA flat field maneuvers. During the maneuvers science data may be blurry, displaced, or missing. The near-real-time images on the SDO website...