Wide-angle geocoronal telescope: a He-II 304-[angstrom] plasmaspheric imager

Journal Article · Wed Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1993 · Optical Engineering; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1117/12.155598· OSTI ID:5288933

Cotton, D M; Conant, R; Chakrabarti, S ^[1]

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1. Boston Univ., MA (United States). Center for Space Physics

The authors describe the wide-angle geocoronal telescope (WIDGET). The telescope is designed to image resonantly scattered solar He-II 304-[angstrom] emission from the cold plasma constituent of the magnetosphere, the plasmasphere. It is a prime-focus telescope consisting of a spherical normal incidence f/2 mirror and a microchannel plate imaging detector. The instrument has a 30-deg field of view with a 0.5- to 1-deg angular resolution and a peak sensitivity of approximately 0.5 counts s[sup [minus]1] rayleigh[sup [minus]1] bin[sup [minus]1]. The instrument was flown on a sounding rocket on 27 October 1992 to test its capabilities. Unfortunately, no useful data were recovered due to a failure in the low-voltage system. (It was scheduled for reflight in October 1993.) WIDGET was designed so that it could easily be adapted to different wavelengths (584, 834, and 1,216 [angstrom]) by means of suitable mirror coatings and filters. In this way, a series of WIDGETs could image different aspects of the inner magnetosphere simultaneously, thus providing a more unified picture of this complex region.

• OSTI ID: 5288933
• Journal Information: Optical Engineering; (United States), Journal Name: Optical Engineering; (United States) Vol. 32:12; ISSN 0091-3286; ISSN OPEGAR
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

661320* -- Auroral
Ionospheric
& Magnetospheric Phenomena-- (1992-)
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
CURRENTS
DESIGN
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
EARTH MAGNETOSPHERE
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
IMAGES
PLASMASPHERE
RADIATIONS
SOLAR ACTIVITY
SOLAR RADIATION
SOLAR WIND
STELLAR RADIATION
TELESCOPES