We are pleased to announce the availability of a beta release of helioviewer.org version 3.0. The beta release can be found at http://beta3.helioviewer.org. We are looking for bug reports, suggestions and comments on version 3.

This new version paves the way for many new features we are planning for the next year. The first new feature connects the images you see in Helioviewer to the science data. If you click the

icon you will get a dialog that looks something like this:

This panel connects the images you see to our partner data services, the Virtual Solar Observatory and the SDO cutout service. You can also download an automatically generated SunPy/Python or Solarsoft/IDL script; running the script will allow you to download the requested data.

A couple of things to note about this beta release:

(1) Recent images will NOT be available through http://beta3.helioviewer.org.

(2) YouTube movie uploading and Bitly link shortening are not available.

(3) Bug reports and suggestions for improvements are welcome!

Please email contact@helioviewer.org or post a comment on the blog – we really would appreciate your feedback.