Intercalibration of SUMER and CDS on SOHO. III. SUMER and CDS-GIS. Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.

Abstract

Simultaneous observation of the same solar sources with different instruments is one way to test prelaunch radiometric calibrations and to detect changes in responsivity with time of extreme-ultraviolet instruments in space. Here we present the results of intercalibration of the SUMER (Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation) spectrometer (detectors A and B) and the GIS (Grazing Incidence Spectrometer), one of two spectrometers that compose the CDS (Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer) on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). The two instruments observed simultaneously radiances of emission lines at or near the center of the solar disk. The emission line chosen for intercomparison was Ne VIII at 770 A. However, such an intercomparison of the SUMER and CDS-GIS measurements means comparing two data sets with large differences in resolution and field of view. The latter difference, especially, introduces differences in the measured intensities caused by the solar variability that is relatively strong in the 770-A line. Using a statistical approach to overcome this problem, we found that the ratio of the GIS to the SUMER average radiances amounted to 2.6 +/- 0.9 before the SOHO's loss of attitude and to 2.1 +/- 0.7 afterward. These findings confirm earlier estimates of the GIS's responsivity being too low, and an update of the GIS calibration is recommended. Despite the large differences in resolution and field of view of the two instruments, the shapes of their normalized and rescaled histograms of the radiances agree well and therefore represent characteristic features of the Ne VIII line.