Cette thèse a pour objectif d'apporter un regard nouveau sur les principales caractéristiques physiques du Soleil. Avant le développement de l'astrophysique, l'étude d'un astre concernait surtout ses propriétés géométriques. La mesure précise du diamètre du Soleil a été entreprise dès l'antiquité et représente un des plus vieux problèmes en astrophysique. Une partie de cette thèse est consacrée à l'étude du diamètre solaire et de ses variations au cours du temps. Un des objectifs est de déterminer si le diamètre du Soleil varie en fonction de l'activité solaire. Les données acquises par les instruments de la mission PICARD ont été utilisées afin d'essayer de répondre à cette question. Cette thèse porte aussi sur la détermination absolue de l'aplatissement solaire et de ses variations au cours du cycle 24. Cette étude s'est basée sur l'exploitation des mesures acquises par deux télescopes spatiaux (PICARD/SODISM et SDO/HMI). Les mesures de l'aplatissement solaire sont importantes et permettent de valider les hypothèses physiques mises en œuvre dans les modèles du Soleil. Cette thèse consiste aussi à déterminer la valeur absolue de l'éclairement solaire total et de sa variabilité au cours du temps. L'éclairement solaire total représente une entrée essentielle pour tous les modèles climatiques. Sa détermination précise est donc fondamentale. La valeur absolue de l'éclairement solaire total a été obtenue à partir des mesures réalisées par le radiomètre PICARD/SOVAP. Le dernier chapitre de cette thèse est dédié à l'étude de l'éclairement solaire dans l'ultraviolet et de ses variations au cours du cycle 24. Cette étude s'appuie sur les mesures réalisées par le spectromètre SOLAR/SOSLPEC à bord de la station spatiale internationale. La variabilité du rayonnement ultraviolet au cours d'un cycle solaire (environ 10% à 200 nm) est beaucoup plus élevée que celle de l'éclairement solaire total (environ 0.1%). La détermination précise de la variabilité ultraviolet est donc très importante. Il est aussi de plus en plus évident que les variations de l'éclairement solaire dans l'ultraviolet jouent un rôle significatif au niveau de la chimie de l'atmosphère et du climat de la Terre. Les résultats obtenus au cours de cette thèse montrent l'intérêt de réaliser des mesures précises dans l'ultraviolet au cours d'un cycle solaire de 11 ans. / This thesis aims to highlight a new vision on the main physical characteristics of the Sun. Before the development of astrophysics, the study of a star mainly concerned its geometrical properties. The accurate measurement of the solar diameter was carried out since the antiquity and represents one of the oldest problems in astrophysics. Part of this thesis is devoted to the study of the solar diameter and its variation over time. One of the objectives is to determine whether the diameter of the Sun varies with the solar activity. Data acquired by the PICARD mission instruments were used to try to answer this question. This thesis also deals with the absolute determination of the solar oblateness and its variation during the cycle 24. This study was based on the use of the measurements acquired by two space-based telescopes (PICARD/SODISM and SDO/HMI). The solar oblateness measurements are important and allow to validate the physical hypotheses implemented in the solar models. This thesis also consists to determine the absolute value of the total solar irradiance and its variability over time. The total solar irradiance is an essential parameter for all climate models. Its accurate determination is therefore fundamental. The absolute value of the total solar irradiance was obtained from the measurements carried out by the PICARD/SOVAP radiometer during the solar cycle 24. The last chapter of this thesis is devoted to the study of the solar irradiance in the ultraviolet and its variation during the solar cycle 24. This study is based on the measurements carried out by the SOLAR/SOSLPEC spectrometer on board the International Space Station. The variations of the ultraviolet radiation during a solar cycle (10% at 200 nm for a strong solar cycle) are much higher than the variations of the total solar irradiance (0.1%). The accurate determination of the ultraviolet solar irradiance is therefore very important. It is also increasingly evident that the variations of the solar irradiance in the ultraviolet play a significant role in the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere and climate. The results obtained during this thesis show the interests to perform accurate measurements in the ultraviolet during a solar cycle of about 11 years. Through this work, we bring a new perspective with respect to the absolute value of the main solar parameters.

yes / This paper presents a new method that provides the means to detect sunspots on full-disk solar images recorded by the Solar Diameter Imager and Surface Mapper (SODISM) on the PICARD satellite. The method is a totally automated detection process that achieves a sunspot recognition rate of 97.6%. The number of sunspots detected by this method strongly agrees with the NOAA catalogue. The sunspot areas calculated by this method have a 99% correlation with SOHO over the same period, and thus help to calculate the filling factor for wavelength (W.L.) 607nm.

yes / The surface of the sun often shows visible sunspots which are located in magnetically active regions of the Sun, and whose number is an indicator of the Sun’s magnetic activity. The detection and classification of sunspots are useful techniques in the monitoring and prediction of solar activity. The automated detection of sunspots from digital images is complicated by their irregularities in shape and variable contrast and intensity compared with their surrounding area. The main aim of this paper is to detect sunspots using images from the Solar Diameter Imager and Surface Mapper (SODISM) on the PICARD satellite and calculate their filling factors. A comparison over time with sunspot numbers obtained using images from the SOHO satellite is also presented.

Solar images are one of the most important sources of available information on the current state and behaviour of the sun, and the PICARD satellite is one of several ground and space-based observatories dedicated to the collection of that data. The PICARD satellite hosts the Solar Diameter Imager and Surface Mapper (SODISM), a telescope aimed at continuously monitoring the Sun. It has generated a huge cache of images and other data that can be analysed and interpreted to improve the monitoring of features, such as sunspots and the prediction and diagnosis of solar activity. In proportion to the available raw material, the little-published analysis of SODISM data has provided the impetus for this study, specifically a novel method of contributing to the development of a system to enhance, detect and segment sunspots using new hybrid methods. This research aims to yield an improved understanding of SODISM data by providing novel methods to tabulate a sunspot and filling factor (FF) catalogue, which will be useful for future forecasting activities. The developed technologies and the findings achieved in this research will work as a corner stone to enhance the accuracy of sunspot segmentation; create efficient filling factor catalogue systems, and enhance our understanding of SODISM image enhancement. The results achieved can be summarised as follows: i) Novel enhancement method for SODISM images. ii) New efficient methods to segment dark regions and detect sunspots. iii) Novel catalogue for filling factor including the number, size and sunspot location. v) Novel statistical method to summarise FFs catalogue. Image processing and partitioning techniques are used in this work; these methods have been applied to remove noise and detect sunspots and will provide more information such as sunspot numbers, size and filling factor. The performance of the model is compared to the fillers extracted from other satellites, such as SOHO. Also, the results were compared with the NOAA catalogue and achieved a precision of 98%. Performance measurement is also introduced and applied to verify results and evaluate proposal methods. Algorithms, implementation, results and future work have been explained in this thesis.

yes / PICARD is a space-based observatory hosting the Solar Diameter Imager and Surface Mapper (SODISM) telescope, which has continuously observed the Sun from July 2010 and up to March 2014. In order to study the fine structure of the solar surface, it is helpful to apply techniques that enhance the images so as to improve the visibility of solar features such as sunspots or faculae. The objective of this work is to develop an innovative technique to enhance the quality of the SODISM images in the five wavelengths monitored by the telescope at 215.0 nm, 393.37 nm, 535.7 nm, 607.1 nm and 782.2 nm. An enhancement technique using interpolation of the high-frequency sub-bands obtained by Discrete Wavelet Transforms (DWT) and the input image is applied to the SODISM images. The input images are decomposed by the DWT as well as Stationary Wavelet Transform (SWT) into four separate sub-bands in horizontal and vertical directions namely, low-low (LL), low-high (LH), high-low (HL) and high–high (HH) frequencies. The DWT high frequency sub-bands are interpolated by a factor 2. The estimated high frequency sub-bands (edges) are enhanced by introducing an intermediate stage using a stationary Wavelet Transform (SWT), and then all these sub-bands and input image are combined and interpolated with half of the interpolation factor α/2, used to interpolate the high-frequency sub-bands, in order to reach the required size for IDWT processing. Quantitative and visual results show the superiority of the proposed technique over a bicubic image resolution enhancement technique. In addition, filling factors for sunspots are calculated from SODISM images and results are presented in this work.

Life on Earth is strongly related to the Sun, which makes it a vital star to study and understand. To improve our knowledge of the way the Sun works, many satellites have been launched into space to monitor the Sun‟s activities where the one of main focus is the effect of these activities on the Earth‟s climate; PICARD is one such satellite. Due to the noise associated with SODISM images, the clarity of these images and the appearance of solar features are affected. Image denoising and enhancement are the main techniques to improve the visual appearance of SODISM images. Affective de-noising algorithm methods depend on a proper detecting of noise present in the image. The aim is to identify which type of noise is present in the image. To reach this point, supervised machine-learning (ML) classifier is used to classify the type of noise present in the image. Furthermore, this work introduces a novel technique developed to enhance the quality of SODISM images. In this thesis, the Modified Undecimated Discrete Wavelet Transform (M-UDWT) technique is used to de-noise and enhance the quality of SODISM images. The proposed method is robust and effectively improves the quality of SODISM images, and produces more precise information and clear feature are brought out. In addition, the non wavelet enhancement is developed as well in this thesis. The results of this algorithm is discussed. The new methods are also assessed using two different methods: subjective (by human observation) and objective (by calculation)