The COronal Diagnostic EXperiment (CODEX) is the solar coronagraph developed by NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center in collaboration with the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI), and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF). CODEX will be launched in September 2024 and will be hosted by the International Space Station (ISS) as an external payload. CODEX is designed to observe the linearly polarized K-corona within the wavelength range 385-440 nm to obtain simultaneous measurements of density, temperature, and radial velocity of the coronal electrons. CODEX is a two-stage externally occulted coronagraph, with a field of view of 2.67 degrees, featuring two fold mirrors, and a series of occulting elements that minimize the amount of diffracted light reaching the detector. The polarization of the solar corona is measured by means of a commercial polarization image sensor manufactured by Sony, the IMX253MZR, that spatially modulates the incoming light beam. The polarimetric characterization of the instrument is one of the fundamental steps to derive the desired physical quantities of the solar corona from observations. It is hence crucial to understand how the instrument modifies the incident polarized light, especially due to the presence of the two fold mirror system within the light path, which is notoriously a source of polarization aberrations. This work describes the polarimetric characterization of the CODEX coronagraph, to determine an estimation of the instrumental polarization, and the results are presented.
The COronal Diagnostic EXperiment (CODEX) is a Heliophysics mission to measure the density, temperature, and velocity of the electrons in the solar corona with the primary goal of improving our understanding of the physical conditions of the solar wind in the acceleration region. The temperature and velocity measurement requires much higher signal-to-noise ratio than the density measurements. In solar coronagraphs, the diffraction of the solar disk light due to the occulting element is the dominant source of noise. Therefore, to further suppress the diffracted sun light with respect to the existing coronagraphs is a critical element of the CODEX design. To minimize the stray light due to diffraction, the selected optical design is a two-stage standard coronagraph with an external occulter, an internal occulter, and a Lyot stop. What is unique for this design is that a focal mask was inserted at the telescope focal plane. It works together with the field lens suppressing the stray light down by ~ another order of magnitude as compared to a traditional three-stage approach. During the optical design, a Fourier Transform based beam propagation software, i.e., GLAD, was used to model the beam path through the full coronagraph, from the external occulter to the detector array. All diffraction sensitive elements: external occulter, internal occulter, focal mask, and Lyot stop were carefully modeled and optimized. As a result, the requirement of achieving a stray light level which is one order of magnitude lower than F-corona was satisfied. On the other hand, to achieve the final suppression, a precision optical alignment is another must. This paper also presents our creative alignment procedure: using the combination of metrology, precision alignment equipment, and real time diffraction ring monitoring to minimize the diffraction. The final test results show that the suppression ratio (B/B0) reaches 10-11 level, which is equivalent to one order of magnitude lower than F-corona.
The Sun-Earth Lagrange point L4 is the most stable location among the five Lagrange points at 1 AU. The L4 mission affords a clear and wide-angel view of the Sun-Earth line for the study of the Sun-Earth, Sun-Moon, and Sun-Mars connections from remote-sensing observations. The L4 mission will significantly contribute to advancing heliophysics science, improving the capability of space weather forecasting, and extending space weather studies beyond near-Earth space. This presentation outlines the importance of L4 observations and advocates comprehensive and coordinated observations of the heliosphere at multi-points including other planned L1 and L5 missions. In addition, conceptual designs are provided for an optical telescope for solar H-alpha and photospheric magnetic field observation, and a EUV telescope for solar corona.
KEYWORDS: Solar processes, Magnetism, Imaging spectroscopy, Data processing, Solar telescopes, Adaptive optics, Speckle, Data acquisition, Observatories, High angular resolution imaging
New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has built, and now operates the 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope (GST) at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO), which was the highest-resolution solar telescope built in the U.S. in a generation. GST observations have been put in a campaign mode to support the NASA Parker Solar Probe (PSP) mission during its perihelia in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, by providing unique high-resolution observations and critically complementary information on the photosphere and chromosphere at the source regions of solar wind acceleration and heating of solar corona. This paper presents the acquisition, processing, and archiving of high-resolution imaging spectroscopy and polarimetry data generated with GST instruments, as well as the preliminary scientific results.
Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) has been developing the Camera Lens System (CLS) for the Total Solar Eclipse (TSE) observation. In 2016 we have assembled a simple camera system including a camera lens, a polarizer, bandpass filters, and CCD to observe the solar corona during the Total Solar Eclipse in Indonesia. Even we could not obtain the satisfactory result in the observation due to poor environment, we obtained some lessons such as poor image quality due to ghost effect from the lens system. For 2017 TSE observation, we have studied and adapted the compact coronagraph design proposed by NASA. The compact coronagraph design dramatically reduces the volume and weight and can be used for TSE observation without an external occulter which blocks the solar disk. We are in developing another camera system using the compact coronagraph design to test and verify key components including bandpass filter, polarizer, and CCD, and it will be used for the Total Solar Eclipse (TSE) in 2017. We plan to adapt this design for a coronagraph mission in the future. In this report we introduce the progress and current status of the project and focus on optical engineering works including designing, analyzing, testing, and building for the TSE observation.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.