Subject: Re: HIGH CADENCE IMAGING CAMPAIGN Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 21:00:44 +0000 From: Howard A Garcia To: Richard Canfield CC: Frantisek Farnik Richard: In answer to your questions. Yes, we would very much like to be a member of your High Cadence Imaging Campaign even though our experiment is not an imager. You may already be familiar with the hard X-ray spectrometer, HXRS. It has been flying since March 2000 aboard the Department of Energy Multispectral Imaging satellite. We are anxious to make comparisons with RHESSI and Alan Kiplinger has a NASA grant to make that connection, among other things. Just to fill you in on some of the pertinent details per your inquiry: HXRS has a 1 sec cadence in its monitor mode and 200 ms in flare mode. Its passband edges are 12-19, 19-29, 29-44, 44-67, 67-100, 100-147, 147-219 and integrated flux over 219 keV. One obvious function of HXRS with respect to RHESSI is the complementary times that RHESSI may be in darkness and HXRS in daylight. That may be useful for certain RHESSI events are started but not completed and vice versa. HXRS is about 600 km circular, 97 deg inclination, sun synchronous which gives us a lot of exposure to the radiation belts and the SAA. The experiment is never turned off except when MTI has some sort of glitch. The mission will continue in operation for at least for one more year. HXRS has a small detector, 25mm NaI and uses pulse height energy discrimination; old technology but it is reliable and provides a sensitivity threshold equivalent to about a NOAA class M1 flare. Our data files are FITS formatted, compatible with SSW, in fact HXRS is a SSW client. We receive data files from the Czech Republic on a daily basis, preprocessed by the Czech Astronomical Institute (AI) to convert downloaded telemetry to FITS. We maintain an archive at SEC as does the AI. The AI also maintains an event archive commencing with late March 2000. If you have any further questions you may email or telephone me at (303) 497 3916. My colleague Frantisek Farnik's email address is cc'd to this message. Howard Richard Canfield wrote: > > The RHESSI team seeks collaborators at ground-based and space-based > observatories to participate in a High Cadence Imaging Campaign. RHESSI > is capable of making high-quality hard and soft X-ray movies with a > cadence of 2 seconds (half spin) and even down to 10s of ms for intense > events, and seeks collaborators at observatories working in other > spectral bands (H-alpha, radio, EUV, continuum, ...) who can make > observations at similar cadence. > > Please contact me by telephone or e-mail to discuss imaging observations > you can achieve with a temporal cadence of at least 2-4 seconds: > > 1. What field of view can you observe at this cadence? (RHESSI sees the > full Sun, but we presume that observations will be aimed at a specific > active region chosen by the Max Millennium Chief Observer) > > 2. What spectral bandpass(es) can you observe? (RHESSI's bandpass is > limited by both detector response and source strength but usually covers > from 3 keV to 17 MeV. Thus, it is interesting to make observations over > a broad range of flare sizes from small soft X-ray B and C flares to M > and X gamma-ray flares). > > 3. In what UT time range and seasons can you observe? (RHESSI > observations are continuous, interrupted only by night in Low-Earth > Orbit and SAA). > > 4. Can you participate in a Target-of-Opportunity campaign at very short > notice, or must we pick a fixed schedule? (RHESSI would welcome > collaborators in either campaign mode, since both have unique advantaqes > and disadvantages). > > 5. If we must pick a fixed schedule, how far in advance must fixed dates > be chosen (RHESSI requires no advanced notice since it is expected to be > continuously operating in the same near-autonomous mode.) > > Of course, we are interested in non-imaging data at high cadence and > lower-cadence imaging data as well, but in response to this message I > would most urgently like to hear about the high-cadence imaging > discussed above. > > I look forward to hearing from you. > > Dick > > Department of Physics E-mail: canfield@physics.montana.edu > Montana State University Telephone: (406) 994-5581 > P.O. Box 173840 Fax: (406) 994-4452 > Bozeman, MT 59717-3840 USA http://solar.physics.montana.edu/canfield > ====================================================================== > FedEx etc: Physics Dept, EPS 264, Montana State Univ, Bozeman MT 59717 > ====================================================================== --------------------------------------------------------------------- Howard Garcia Dr. Space Environment Center Research Division Howard Garcia Dr. Space Environment Center Research Division Conference Software Address Default Directory Server Additional Information: Last Name Garcia First Name Howard Version 2.1