First look at the far corona in EUV: SUVI Extended Corona Observations

Our ability to directly image the solar corona well beyond the fields of views of existing EUV instruments has recently been demonstrated by SDO/AIA and Proba/SWAP off-pointings. They demonstrate that there is a measurable signal out to almost 2.5 Rsun. These encouraging results inspired the SUVI team to investigate even wider fields of view, to over 4 Rsun. The Lockheed Martin SUVI team in conjunction with NOAA and NASA collected data using the SUVI instrument on GOES-16 at six different pointings over approximately one hour to assess the feasibility of direct imaging the outer corona. This was done twice during the week of February 12, 2018, with two programs involving different patterns and exposures. A preliminary analysis shows that there is signal in the longer exposures out to the edge of the extended FOV, even though the Sun and its corona were in quiet states at the time.