It has been a big mystery what drives filament eruptions and flares. We have studied in detail an X1.8 flare and its associated filament eruption that occurred in NOAA Active Region 9236 on November 24,2000. For this work we have analyzed high temporal (about 1 minute) and spatial (about 1 arcsec) resolution images taken by Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, Hα centerline and blue wing (-0.6Å) images from Big Bear Solar Observatory, and 1600 Å UV images by the Transition Region and Corona Explorer (TRACE). We have found that there were several transient brightenings seen in Hα and, more noticeably in TRACE 1600 Å images around the preflare phase. A closer look at the UV brightenings in 1600 Å images reveals that they took place near one end of the erupting filament, and are a kind of jets supplying mass into the transient loops seen in 1600 Å. These brightenings were also associated with canceling magnetic features (CMFs) as seen in the MDI magnetograms. The flux variations of these CMFs suggest that the flux cancellation may have been driven by the emergence of the new flux. For this event, we have estimated the ejection speeds of the filament ranging from 10 to 160 km s-1 for the first twenty minutes. It is noted that the initiation of the filament eruption (as defined by the rise speed less than 20 km s-1) coincided with the preflare activity characterized by UV brightenings and CMFs. The speed of the associated LASCO CME can be well extrapolated from the observed filament speed and its direction is consistent with those of the disturbed UV loops associated with the preflare activity. Supposing the Hα/UV transient brightenings and the canceling magnetic features are due to magnetic reconnect ion in the low atmosphere, our results may be strong observational evidence supporting that the initiation of the filament eruption and the preflare phase of the associated flare may be physically related to low-atmosphere magnetic reconnection.

A white light flare was observed at the limb on 16 August 1989 in He 10830 Å spectra, Hα slit jaw photo-grams, and white light filter-grams of ⋋=5600 Å ±800 Å. The kernels of the white light flare are not spatially related with Ha brightenings, suggesting that the flare energy would be released at the photosphere.

We have examined the relationship between the speeds of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and the GOES X-ray peak fluxes of associated flares. Noting that previous studies were possibly affected by projection effects and random association effects, we have considered two sets of carefully selected CME-flare events: four homologous events and four well-observed limb events. In the respective samples, good correlations are found between the CME speeds and the GOES X-ray peak fluxes of the associated flares. A similarly good correlation is found for all eight events of both samples when the CME speeds of the homologous events are corrected for projection effect. Our results suggest that a close relationship possibly exists between CME kinematics and flaring processes.

One-dimensional hydrodynamic modeling of a protostellar flare loop is presented. The model consists of thermally isolated loop connecting the central core and the accretion disk. We found that the conductive heat flux of a flare heated the accretion disk up to coronal temperature and consequently the disk is evaporated and disappeard. This effect may explain the ovserved feature of the repeated flare from the young stellar object YLW 15.

Recently, we have set up a new digital CCD camera system, MicroMax YHS-1300 manufactured by Roper Scientific for Hα observation by Solar Flare Telescope at Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory. It has a 12 bit dynamic range, a pixel number of 1300×1030, a thermoelectric cooler, and an electric shutter. Its readout speed is about 3 frames per second and the dark current is about 0.05 e-/p/s at -10°. We have made a system performance test by confirming the system linearity, system gain, and system noise that its specification requires. We have also developed a data acquisition software which connects a digital camera con-troller to a PC and acquires Hα images via Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 under Windows 98. Comparisons of high quality Hα images of AR 9169 and AR 9283 obtained from SOFT with the corresponding images from Learmonth Solar Observatory in Australia confirm that our Hα digital observational system is performed properly. Finally, we present a set of Hα images taken from a two ribbon flare occurred in AR 9283.

We have developed a near real-time flare alerting system which (1) downloads the latest GOES-l0 1-8 Å X-ray flux 1-min data by an automated ftp program and shell scripts, (2) produces a beep sound in a simple IDL widget program when the flux is larger than a critical value, and (3) makes it possible to do a wireless alerting by a set of portable transceivers. Thanks to the system, we have made successful Ha flare observations by the Solar Flare Telescope in Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory. This system is expected to be helpful for ground-based flare observers.

In this study we present a new improved nonlinear calibration method for vector magnetograms made by the Solar Flare Telescope of BOAO. To identify Fe I 6302.5 line, we have scanned monochromatic images of the line integrated over filter passband, changing the location of the central transmission wavelength of a Lyot filter. Then we obtained a filter-convolved line profile, which is in good agreement with spectral atlas data provided by the Sacramento Peak Solar Observatory. The line profile has been used to derive calibration coefficients of longitudinal and transverse fields, employing the conventional line slope method under the weak field approximation. Our improved nonlinear calibration method has also been used to calculate theoretical Stokes polarization signals with various angles of inclination of magnetic fields. For its numerical test, we have compared input magnetic fields with the calibrated ones, which have been derived from the new improved non-linear method and the conventional method respectively. The numerical test shows that the calibrated fields obtained from the improved method are consistent with the input fields, but not with those from the conventional method. Finally, we applied our new improved method to a dipole model which characterizes a typical field configuration of a single, round sunspot. It is noted that the conventional method remarkably underestimates the transverse field component near the inner penumbra.