First ever VLF monitoring of the lunar occultation of a solar flare during the 2010 annular solar eclipse and its effects on the D-region electron density profile

Abstract A ground based Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio receiver of Indian Centre for Space Physics located at Khukurdaha ( 22 ° 27 ′ N , 87 ° 45 ′ E ) monitored the VLF signal at 19.8 kHz from the NWC station during a partial solar eclipse (maximum obscuration 75%) which took place on January 15, 2010. The receiver and the transmitter were on two opposite sides of the annular eclipse belt. During the same period, a solar flare also occurred and it was partly blocked by the lunar disk. Thus the resultant signal was perturbed both by the eclipse and by the flare. The deviation of the signal from the normal value was obtained by subtracting from the average diurnal signal on days bracketing the eclipse. The deviation was analysed. We compare the data from GOES-14, HINODE and RHESSI satellites during the event. We got a clear depression in the data during the period of the partial eclipse. Most interestingly, there was also a flaring activity in the sun which reached its peak (C-type) just after the time when the eclipse was near maximum. By superposing the lunar disk on the image obtained by HINODE mission, we pin-point the time frame of blocking hard and soft X-rays. We extract the time variation of the electron density profile in the D-region of the ionosphere due to occulted solar flare from the combined effect of the eclipse and the flare. We also compare the results with a normal solar flare.