Real-time flare detection in ground-based H$α$ imaging at Kanzelhöhe Observatory

Kanzelhöhe Observatory (KSO) regularly performs high-cadence full-disk imaging of the solar chromosphere in the H$α$ and CaIIK spectrallines as well as the solar photosphere in white-light. In the frame of ESA's Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme, a new system for real-time H$α$ data provision and automatic flare detection was developed at KSO. The data and events detected are published in near real-time at ESA's SSA Space Weather portal (http://swe.ssa.esa.int/web/guest/kso-federated). In this paper, we describe the H$α$ instrument, the image recognition algorithms developed, the implementation into the KSO H$α$ observing system and present the evaluation results of the real-time data provision and flare detection for a period of five months. The H$α$ data provision worked in $99.96$% of the images, with a mean time lag between image recording and online provision of 4s. Within the given criteria for the automatic image recognition system (at least three H$α$ images are needed for a positive detection), all flares with an area $\ge$50 micro-hemispheres and located within $60^\circ$ of the Sun's center that occurred during the KSO observing times were detected, in total a number of 87 events. The automatically determined flare importance and brightness classes were correct in $\sim$85%. The mean flare positions in heliographic longitude and latitude were correct within $\sim$1$^\circ$. The median of the absolute differences for the flare start times and peak times from the automatic detections in comparison to the official NOAA (and KSO) visual flare reports were 3 min (1 min).

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