Camera ‘hack’ lets Solar Orbiter peer deeper into Sun’s atmosphere

A last minute modification of the EUI (Extreme Utraviolet Imager) instrument on board the Solar Orbiter mission provides new views of our star's corona. The corona is a very tenuous medium and dedicated telescopes called coronagraphs are needed to observe it. FSI (Full Sun Imager), the wide angle channel of EUI, is the first coronagraph imaging in the extreme UV.
 
Although it was not designed for this, a last minute modification of the aperture door allows FSI to regularly operate in coronagraph mode. The images can be used to obtain diagnostics of the temperature of the coronal plasma much further from the Sun than was possible before.

p { line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm; background: transparent }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }
 
 
IAS is co-PI of EUI. The FSI full disk channel with which the images were acquired was developed under the responsibility of IAS.
 
Contact at IAS : Frédéric Auchère
 
Links:

• ESA press release
• Movie
• Scientific paper: Auchère et al., A&A, 674 (2023) A127, doi:0004-6361/202346039