SunCET: A compact EUV instrument to fill a critical observational gap

TL;DR

SunCET is a compact EUV instrument designed to track coronal mass ejections in the middle corona, utilizing innovative detector technology for simultaneous high dynamic range imaging and spectroscopy, suitable for CubeSat deployment.

Contribution

The paper introduces SunCET, a novel compact EUV instrument with simultaneous high dynamic range imaging and spectroscopy, eliminating the need for an opaque occulter and enabling efficient CME tracking.

Findings

Innovative detector technology enables simultaneous high dynamic range imaging.

SunCET's compact design suits CubeSat deployment.

Successful Phase A development for NASA CubeSat mission.

Abstract

The Sun Coronal Ejection Tracker (SunCET) is an extreme ultraviolet imager and spectrograph instrument concept for tracking coronal mass ejections through the region where they experience the majority of their acceleration: the difficult-to-observe middle corona. It contains a wide field of view (0-4~\Rs) imager and a 1~\AA\ spectral-resolution-irradiance spectrograph spanning 170-340~\AA. It leverages new detector technology to read out different areas of the detector with different integration times, resulting in what we call "simultaneous high dynamic range", as opposed to the traditional high dynamic range camera technique of subsequent full-frame images that are then combined in post-processing. This allows us to image the bright solar disk with short integration time, the middle corona with a long integration time, and the spectra with their own, independent integration time. Thus, SunCET does not require the use of an opaque or filtered occulter. SunCET is also compact -- $\sim$15 $\times$ 15 $\times$ 10~cm in volume -- making it an ideal instrument for a CubeSat or a small, complementary addition to a larger mission. Indeed, SunCET is presently in a NASA-funded, competitive Phase A as a CubeSat and has also been proposed to NASA as an instrument onboard a 184 kg Mission of Opportunity.