Development of an automatic filament disappearance detection system

This paper presents an efficient and automatic method for detecting filament disappearances. This method was applied to the Big Bear Solar Observatory's (BBSO) full-disk Ha images. The initial step is to detect the filaments in the solar image, then determine if they are growing, stable or disappearing. If a disappearing filament is found, the solar community can be automatically alerted in near real time. This system is proven to be accurate and fast. In addition, three statistical studies of the appearance and disappearance of all filaments in 1999 are presented.