HR: 0800h
AN: SH21A-0398    [Abstracts]
TI: Zodiacal Light Analysis and Removal From the Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) Data
AU: * Simon, S
EM: ssimon@ucsd.edu
AF: Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093 United States
AU: Jackson, B V
EM: bvjackson@ucsd.edu
AF: Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093 United States
AU: Buffington, A
EM: abuffington@ucsd.edu
AF: Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093 United States
AU: Hick, P P
EM: pphick@ucsd.edu
AF: Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093 United States
AU: Smith, A
EM: a4smith@ucsd.edu
AF: Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093 United States
AB: The Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) experiment provides white-light photometric maps covering most of the sky each orbit of the Coriolis spacecraft. The SMEI differential photometry specification is 0.1% for each 1 square degree sky bin, and was designed to provide precise photometric white light images over most of the sky on each 102-minute Earth orbit in order to map heliospheric structures. One of the brightest contaminant signals observed in SMEI is zodiacal light brightness that must be modeled and subtracted from the data in order to provide heliospheric sky maps free from large background changes. We have devised a technique to remove zodiacal dust brightness from the SMEI maps, and in order to do so accurately measure the asymmetry of the equatorial dust to the ecliptic plane as well as the Gegenschein brightness throughout the year. We present preliminary analyses of these observations for specific intervals during the one and a half year lifetime of SMEI.
DE: 6035 Orbital and rotational dynamics
DE: 6213 Dust
DE: 2129 Interplanetary dust
DE: 2164 Solar wind plasma
DE: 2194 Instruments and techniques
SC: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting