Studies of solar helicity using vector magnetograms

Observations of photospheric magnetic fields made with vector magnetographs have been used recently to study helicity on the Sun. In this paper we indicate what can and cannot be derived from vector magnetograms, and point out some potential problems in these data that could affect the calculations of 'helicity'. Among these problems are magnetic saturation, Faraday rotation, low spectral resolution, and the method of resolving the ambiguity in the azimuth.