The SWAP EUV Imaging Telescope Part I: Instrument Overview and Pre-Flight Testing
Berghmans, D.; Auchère, F.; Seaton, D. B.; Nicula, B.; D'Huys, E.; Slemzin, V.; Bloomfield, D. S.; Yalim, M. S.; Schühle, U.; Gallagher, P. T.; Zender, J.; De Groof, A.; Rossi, L.; Halain, J. -P.; Rochus, P.; Mazy, E.; Thibert, T.; Raftery, C. L.; Defise, J. -M.; Lecat, J. -H.
Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, United States, France, Germany, Russia
Abstract
The Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) is an EUV solar telescope onboard ESA's Project for Onboard Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) mission launched on 2 November 2009. SWAP has a spectral bandpass centered on 17.4 nm and provides images of the low solar corona over a 54×54 arcmin field-of-view with 3.2 arcsec pixels and an imaging cadence of about two minutes. SWAP is designed to monitor all space-weather-relevant events and features in the low solar corona. Given the limited resources of the PROBA2 microsatellite, the SWAP telescope is designed with various innovative technologies, including an off-axis optical design and a CMOS-APS detector. This article provides reference documentation for users of the SWAP image data.