Abstract
In order to assess the reliability and consistency of white-light coronagraph measurements, we report on quantitative comparisons between polarized brightness [pB] and total brightness [B] images taken by the following white-light coronagraphs: LASCO-C2 on SOHO, SECCHI-COR1 and -COR2 on STEREO, and the ground-based MLSO-Mk4. The data for this comparison were taken on 16 April 2007, when both STEREO spacecraft were within 3.1∘ of Earth’s heliographic longitude, affording essentially the same view of the Sun for all of the instruments. Due to the difficulties of estimating stray-light backgrounds in COR1 and COR2, only Mk4 and C2 produce reliable coronal-hole values (but not at overlapping heights), and these cannot be validated without rocket flights or ground-based eclipse measurements. Generally, the agreement between all of the instruments’ pB values is within the uncertainties in bright streamer structures, implying that measurements of bright CMEs also should be trustworthy. Dominant sources of uncertainty and stray light are discussed, as is the design of future coronagraphs from the perspective of the experiences with these instruments.
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Notes
The repointings of both STEREO spacecraft in February 2007 were performed to reduce the stray light caused by internal misalignments in COR2-A and -B. These repointings changed the spatial distribution of stray light in COR1-A and -B, but they did not increase the overall amount of stray light.
All routines, which have a .pro suffix, are written in the IDL language and are freely available in the SolarSoft package: www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/ .
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the anonymous referee for helpful comments, which resulted in a much improved manuscript. This research was supported by NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator award NNX08AJ09G to the University of Michigan. A.M.V. acknowledges UBACyT (Universidad de Buenos Aires) grant no. 20020090100264 for partial financial support. R.J.H. was funded by NASA under GSRP fellowship NNX08AT43H FLL. The LASCO-C2 project at Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille is funded by the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES). The authors thank Katherine Baldwin for her helpful comments.
LASCO was built by a consortium of the Naval Research Laboratory, USA, the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (formerly Laboratoire d’Astronomie Spatiale), France, the Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung (formerly Max-Planck-Institut für Aeronomie), Germany, and the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, UK. SOHO is a project of joint collaboration by ESA and NASA.
The STEREO/SECCHI data used here are produced by an international consortium of the Naval Research Laboratory (USA), Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Lab (USA), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (USA), Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK), University of Birmingham (UK), Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung (Germany), Centre Spatiale de Liège (Belgium), Institut d’Optique Théorique et Appliquée (France), and Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (France).
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Now R.J. Hewelt at Dept. of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
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Frazin, R.A., Vásquez, A.M., Thompson, W.T. et al. Intercomparison of the LASCO-C2, SECCHI-COR1, SECCHI-COR2, and Mk4 Coronagraphs. Sol Phys 280, 273–293 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-012-0028-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-012-0028-3