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Session 37 - First Results from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
Display session, Tuesday, June 11
Tripp Commons,

[37.01] Ultraviolet Imaging of the Extended Solar Corona with the SOHO Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer

G. Noci (U. of Florence), J. L. Kohl (CfA), E. Antonucci (U. of Turin), G. Tondello (U. of Padua), M. C. E. Huber (ESA), L. Strachan (CfA), S. Giordano (U. of Turin), A. Panasyuk (CfA), C. Benna (U. of Turin), A. Ciaravella (U. of Palermo), S. Fineschi (CfA), L. D. Gardner (CfA), G. Naletto (U. of Padua), P. Nicolosi (U. of Padua), J. C. Raymond (CfA), M. Romoli (U. of Florence), O. H. W. Siegmund (UCB), D. Spadaro (OAC), P. L. Smith (CfA)

Spectroscopic observations of the extended solar corona with the SOHO Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer (UVCS/SOHO) can be used to produce images of the extended solar corona in several ultraviolet spectral lines. The images are produced by scanning coronal images across the spectrometer entrance slits. The slits intercept a 40 arcminute slice of the corona parallel to the limb tangent. Telescope mirror motions can be used to scan from about 1.25 to 10 R_\sun. The instrument is rolled about its Sun-center axis to obtain images of the full corona. The spatial resolution depends on the selected slit width and the combined resolution of the spectrometer and XDL detectors. It is limited by diffraction for observations near the Sun where only a narrow strip of the telescope mirror is unvignetted by the external occulter. Images of equatorial streamers in HI Lyman-alpha and beta, and in O VI 103.2 nm will be presented. Ultraviolet images of polar plumes will also be provided. In some cases, interpolation techniques are used to fill-in gaps in the raster pattern. This research is supported by NASA Contract NAS5-31250 to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, by the Italian Space Agency and by Switzerland.

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