2D and 3D polar plume analysis from the three vantage positions of STEREO/EUVI A, B, and SOHO/EIT

22 pages, 10 figures, Solar Physics articleThe final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11207-011-9902-7Polar plumes are seen as elongated objects starting at the solar polar regions. Here, we analyze these objects from a sequence of images taken simultaneously by the three spacecraft telescopes STEREO/EUVI A and B, and SOHO/EIT. We establish a method capable of automatically identifying plumes in solar EUV images close to the limb at 1.01 - 1.39 R in order to study their temporal evolution. This plume-identification method is based on a multiscale Hough-wavelet analysis. Then two methods to determined their 3D localization and structure are discussed: First, tomography using the filtered back-projection and including the differential rotation of the Sun and, secondly, conventional stereoscopic triangulation. We show that tomography and stereoscopy are complementary to study polar plumes. We also show that this systematic 2D identification and the proposed methods of 3D reconstruction are well suited, on one hand, to identify plumes individually and on the other hand, to analyze the distribution of plumes and inter-plume regions. Finally, the results are discussed focusing on the plume position with their cross-section area.National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)Max Planck Societ