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E.J. Schmahl (U MD / GSFC), G.J. Hurford (UCB SSL), RHESSI Imaging Team
The Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectrosopic Imager (RHESSI) has been recording rotationally-modulated X-rays from solar flares since its launch on February 5, 2002. Due to its unique design, in which 9 grid pairs with logarithmically-spaced angular resolutions modulate incident photons, RHESSI gives spatial information on hard (~6-300 keV) X-rays on 9 angular scales. The finest grids have an angular resolution of 2.3 arcsec; and each coarser grid pair has a resolution larger by a factor of 1.73, with the 9th grid pair resolving 183 arcsec.
The RHESSI telescope's resolving capabilities are now proving to exceed those of previous hard X-ray telescopes (e.g. HXIS, Hinotori and HXT) by up to an order of magnitude. Using the calibrated modulation profiles for a variety of flares, we will present new information on the spatial scales of the structures RHESSI sees in flares, and compare and contrast these results with the the published literature on flare source sizes.
The research by EJS was supported by NAG-5-10180 from GSFC to the University of Maryland.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: schmahl@hessi.gsfc.nasa.gov
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.