Proc. SPIE 5171, 1−5, 2004
Telescopes and Instrumentation for Solar Astrophysics,
S. Fineschi, M.A. Gummin (eds.)
© SPIE − The International Society for Optical Engineering
SMEI: Design and Development of an Earth-Orbiting All-Sky Coronagraph
B.V. Jackson, P.P. Hick and A. Buffington
Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California San Diego
R. Gold
Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory
G.M. Simnett, C.J. Eyles, M.P. Cooke
School of Physics and Space Research, University of Birmingham, UK
N.R. Waltham
Space Science Department, Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, UK
Abstract
The Air Force/NASA Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) launched January 6, 2003
is now recording whole sky data on each 100-minute orbit. Precise photometric
sky maps of the heliosphere around Earth are expected from these data. The SMEI
instrument extends the heritage of the HELIOS spacecraft photometer systems that
have recorded CMEs and other heliospheric structures from close to the Sun into
the anti-solar hemisphere. SMEI rotates once per orbit and views the sky away
from Earth using CCD camera technology. To optimize the information derived
from this and similar instruments, a tomographic technique has been developed
for analyzing remote sensing observations of the heliosphere as observed in
Thomson scattering. The technique provides 3-dimensional reconstructions of
heliospheric density. The tomography program has been refined to analyze
time-dependent phenomena such as evolving corotating heliospheric structures
and more discrete events such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and this
improved analysis is being applied to the SMEI data.