The Prolate Apodized Solar Coronagraph

Details The Prolate Apodized Solar Coronagraph The Prolate Apodized Solar Coronagraph

Jun 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007lyot.confe..40a&link_type=abstract

Proceedings of the conference In the Spirit of Bernard Lyot: The Direct Detection of Planets and Circumstellar Disks in the 21s

Physics

Optics

Scientific paper

We present the project of a new solar coronagraph that makes it possible to observe the solar corona very close to the solar limb, without using Lyot's mask and stop technique. The high dynamic capability is obtained using a strongly apodized aperture. A good choice for the aperture transmission is the generalized prolate spheroidal function of prolateness coefficient c on the order of 10. Such an instrument operated in space, could reduce the diffraction halo produced by the Sun by a factor 100 000, at the cost of an intensity throughput of 10 %. The classical resolution, in terms of equivalent width of the PSF, is reduced by a factor of about 1.7 while the MTF of the telescope becomes similar to a Gaussian function with unchanged cut-off frequency D/lambda. The telescope design is an unobstructed circular aperture and the variable transmission produced directly at the entrance window. This concept, although demanding in terms of mechanical and optical achievements, is preferred to the more classical re-imaging of a clear aperture and subsequent apodisation, for image quality concerns. It does not need a wide field telescope and may take advantage of adaptive optics for ground based observations. It is expected that such a system should give much better images than the classical Lyot coronagraph very close to the solar limb. Such observations should give access to coronal heating processes expected to occur close to the solar surface, and provide information on Coronal Mass Ejections mechanisms at work in the very low corona.

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