Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI)

• DOI: 10.1007/s11214-008-9341-4
• Publication Date: 2008-05-15T09:08:23Z
• Authors: R. A. Howard; J. D. Moses; A. Vourlidas; J. S. Newmark; D. G. Socker; S. P. Plunkett; C. M. Korendyke; J. W. Cook; A. Hurley; J. M. Davila; W. T. Thompson; O. C. St Cyr; E. Mentzell; K. Mehalick; J. R. Lemen; J. P. Wuelser; D. W. Duncan; T. D. Tarbell; C. J. Wolfson; A. Moore; R. A. Harrison; N. R. Waltham; J. Lang; C. J. Davis; C. J. Eyles; H. Mapson-Menard; G. M. Simnett; J. P. Halain; J. M. Defise; E. Mazy; P. Rochus; R. Mercier; M. F. Ravet; F. Delmotte; F. Auchere; J. P. Delaboudiniere; V. Bothmer; W. Deutsch; D. Wang; N. Rich; S. Cooper; V. Stephens; G. Maahs; R. Baugh; D. McMullin; T. Carter
• Keywords: Coronagraph; Extreme ultraviolet; Heliosphere

The Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) is a five telescope package, which has been developed for the Solar Terrestrial Relation Observatory (STEREO) mission by Naval Research Laboratory (USA), Lockheed Astrophysics Goddard Space Flight Center University of Birmingham (UK), Rutherford Appleton Max Planck Institute System (Germany), Centre Spatiale de Leige (Belgium), Institut d'Optique (France) d'Astrophysique (France). SECCHI comprises telescopes, together image solar corona from disk to beyond 1 AU. These telescopes are: an extreme ultraviolet imager (EUVI: 1–1.7 R⊙), two traditional Lyot coronagraphs (COR1: 1.5–4 R⊙ COR2: 2.5–15 R⊙) new designs heliospheric imagers (HI-1: 15–84 HI-2: 66–318 R⊙). All instruments use 2048×2048 pixel CCD arrays in backside-in mode. EUVI backside surface specially processed EUV sensitivity, while others have anti-reflection coating applied. A multi-tasking operating system, running on PowerPC CPU, receives commands spacecraft, controls instrument operations, acquires images compresses them downlink through main science channel (at compression factors typically up 20×) also low bandwidth be used space weather forecasting 200×). An factor about 10× enable collection at rate one every 2–3 minutes. Identical instruments, except different sizes occulters, are included STEREO-A STEREO-B spacecraft.