SIMULATIONS OF HARD X-RAY IMAGING SPECTROSCOPY
WITH THE HESSI ROTATING MODULATION COLLIMATORS
E. J. Schmahl, University of Maryland, Department of Astronomy
B.R. Dennis NASA/Goddard, Lab for Astronomy and Solar Physics
Presented at the AAS/SPD Meeting, June 1997, Montana State Univ.
The High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI)
has been funded as a Small Explorer to perform
imaging spectroscopy of solar flares in the 3 keV - 10 MeV
range. It will be a rotation modulation collimator (RMC)
telescope with 9 collimators resolving angular scales from
2.3 to 189 arcseconds, capable of mapping flares anywhere
on the Sun.
To prepare for this mission, we have performed simulations
of the imaging capability of HESSI using the known parameters
of its collimators and standard methods of RMC image
reconstruction. One of the flare models used in the
simulation is based on the HXT images of the "Masuda flare"
shown in Figure 1 below.
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