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So we've already asked about solar coordinate systems, and learned What is a Carrington Rotation?.

The next question logical question is:

How do we link these solar coordinates to the heliosphere and Earth?

Fortunately, this isn't as ugly as solar coordinates. It's still tough, though.

We're already dealing with in situ data from multiple vantage points. The following figure shows the two STEREO spacecraft, and missions near Earth (ACE, Wind & SOHO) experiencing different parts of the Parker spiral at the same time:

Toni Galvin produced a plot showing us the solar wind velocity, as viewed from STEREO-A, STEREO-B, and Wind, for the time period covering WHI:

Notice that, in general, STEREO-B sees a feature, then Wind, then STEREO-A, corresponding to the direction of the solar wind flow. If you want to compare these features directly, you might consider offsetting them in time so the features directly overlap.

However, HOW DO WE COMPARE THESE FEATURES WITH SOLAR DATA?

We want to compare these features with their alleged origination point, at the Sun. A good estimate can be obtained by taking the measured velocity of the solar wind, and ballistically map the data back to the Sun. This gives an estimate of the origin of the solar wind data, relative to the solar coordinates:

How does this compare to solar synoptic map, such as one produced by Nathan Rich for STEREO SECCHI?

That's what we're trying to find out. Furthermore, mapping the heliospheric data to geospace can hold a whole new set of challenges!