Studies with the Pinhole/Occulter Facility

Abstract

The Pinhole/Occulter Facility is a novel instrumentation concept and will observe solar phenomena and cosmic X-ray sources with an unprecedented anzular resolution of 0.2 arc s. It achieves this by using coded-aperture imaging over a 50-m baseline, with a deployable boom used to separate an aperture mask from position-sensitive X-ray detector arrays.The existence of a remote occulting mask will make it possible to have largediameter telescopes for white-light and ultraviolet observations of the corona. These will provide qualitative improvements in sensitivity and diagnostic capability over the series of coronagraphs flown to date, giving our clearest view of 'd

Hard X-ray emission processes in solar flares

“…In the future, higher resolution hard X-ray images obtained with better time resolution and extending to higher photon energies will certainly allow improved identification of the X-ray emitting electron population as well as the characteristics of the emitting source and the location of the energy release site. In particular, experiments such as the 'Pinhole Occulting Facility' (Tandberg-Hanssen et aL, 1983) providing high temporal, spatial and spectral resolution X-ray data should allow close examination of the dynamics of the emitting particles themselves once they are accelerated. As a conclusion, although X-ray emission is the most direct diagnostics of energetic electrons, hard X-ray observations by themselves do not give the only clues to the problems of particle acceleration in solar flares.…”

A Laboratory Demonstration of High-Resolution Hard X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Imaging Using Fourier-Transform Techniques

“…A multi-grid x-ray and hard x-ray Fourier-transform imager has been part of the NASA Pinhole Occulter Facility concept [7]. We hav e been interested in extending the energy range of such an instrument into the γ-ray regime, well above 100 keV [8].…”