HR: 0830h
AN: SH41B-0459    [PDF]
TI: Space Performance of the Multistage Labyrinthine SMEI Baffle
AU: * Buffington, A
EM: abuffington@ucsd.edu
AF: UCSD/CASS, Mail Code 0424 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0424 United States
AU: Jackson, B V
EM: bvjackson@ucsd.edu
AF: UCSD/CASS, Mail Code 0424 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0424 United States
AU: Hick, P P
EM: pphick@ucsd.edu
AF: UCSD/CASS, Mail Code 0424 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0424 United States
AB: The Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) was launched on 6 January 2003, and shortly thereafter raised to a nearly circular orbit at 840 km. Three SMEI CCD cameras on the zenith-oriented CORIOLIS spacecraft cover most of the sky beyond about 20$\deg$ from the Sun, each 102-minute orbit. Data from this instrument will ultimately provide precision visible-light photometric sky maps. Once starlight and other constant or slowly varying backgrounds are subtracted, the residue is mostly sunlight that has been Thomson-scattered from heliospheric electrons. These maps will enable 3-dimensional tomographic reconstruction of heliospheric density and velocity. This analysis requires 0.1% photometry and background-light reduction below one S10 (the brightness equivalent of a 10th magnitude star per square degree). Thus 10$^{-15}$ of surface-reduction is required relative to the solar disk. The SMEI labyrinthine baffle provides roughly 10$^{-10}$ of this reduction; the subsequent optics provides the remainder. We analyze data covering a range of angles between the SMEI optical axis and the Sun, or the Moon, to evaluate the full system's stray-light rejection performance.
DE: 8194 Instruments and techniques
SC: SPA - Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting