The Middle Corona Instruments

Instruments used to observe
the Middle Corona

Here we present several instruments used for observing the middle corona, combined with their characteristics. This is expected to grow over time.

How do we
observe it?

Figure 1 shows an image from the SWAP EUV imager (centre), with a portion of a LASCO C2 white light coronagraph overlaid, from 2014. The Field of View (FOV) of the image is approximately 8 R_Sun in diameter, or 4 R_Sun from disk centre, roughly covering from solar disk centre to the edge of the Middle Corona. The over-laid boxes show the relative nominal FOVs of different EUV observing instruments, including; PROBA2-SWAP and STEREO-EUVI (Blue); GOES-SUVI (Red); SOHO-EIT (Yellow); SDO-AIA (Green). Each of these views do not take into account an instruments ability to off-point which can drastically increase how far it can probe the middle corona. The two grey-dashed lines represents the potential FOV of Solar Orbiter's FSI instrument at Perihelion and the potential EUVI imager on the Lagrange mission.

Figure 1. A SWAP-EUV image, combined with a LASCO-C2 coronagraph image, from 2014. The Field of View (FOV) extends from from solar disk centre to approximately 4 R_Sun, roughly covering to the edge of the Middle Corona. The over-laid boxes show the relative nominal FOV of different EUV observing instruments.

Instrument Platform Type Resolution / pixels Resolution / arcsec pixel^-1 Field-of-view / Arc-min Wavelength (If applicable) /Å Cadence / sec

SWAP PROBA2 EUV Imager 1024×1024 - 34×34 174 120

EIT SOHO EUV Imager 1024×1024 - 42×42 171
195
286
304 -

EUVI STEREO White Light
/EUV Imager 2048×2048 1.6 - 171
195
304
286 -

AIA SDO EUV Imager 4096×4096 - - 1700
4500
1600
304
171
193
211
335
94
131 -

SUVI GOES EUV Imager 1280×1280 - - 171
195
284
304
94
131 -

SXI GOES X-Ray Imager 512×512 - - 6-60 60

Instrument	Platform	Type	Resolution / pixels	Resolution / arcsec pixel^-1	Field-of-view / Arc-min	Wavelength (If applicable) /Å	Cadence / sec
SWAP	PROBA2	EUV Imager	1024×1024	-	34×34	174	120
EIT	SOHO	EUV Imager	1024×1024	-	42×42	171 195 286 304	-
EUVI	STEREO	White Light /EUV Imager	2048×2048	1.6	-	171 195 304 286	-
AIA	SDO	EUV Imager	4096×4096	-	-	1700 4500 1600 304 171 193 211 335 94 131	-
SUVI	GOES	EUV Imager	1280×1280	-	-	171 195 284 304 94 131	-
SXI	GOES	X-Ray Imager	512×512	-	-	6-60	60

Table 3. Instruments that can be used to probe the middle corona. The information has been retrieved from the various instrment web pages and instrument papers, and may change over time.

The Solar X-ray Imager (SXI), observes the Sun in the X-ray wavelengths, between 6 and 60 Å, with a 1-minute cadence using a 512×512 intensified CCD. Further information can be found here.

Accreditation

Several images and movies were created using the ESA and NASA funded Helioviewer Project.

LASCO Images courtesy of SOHO/LASCO consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

SWAP Images courtesy of PROBA2/SWAP consortium. PROBA2 is a project of the Centre Spatial de Liège and the Royal Observatory of Belgium funded by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) and ESA.

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