Initial radiometric calibration of the HRI

Context. The HRIEUV telescope was calibrated on ground at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Germany’s national metrology institute, using the Metrology Light Source (MLS) synchrotron in April 2017 during the calibration campaign of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument on board the Solar Orbiter mission. Aims. We used the pre-flight end-to-end calibration and component-level (mirror multilayer coatings, filters, detector) characterization results to establish the beginning-of-life performance of the HRIEUV telescope, which will serve as a reference for radiometric analysis and monitoring of the telescope in-flight degradation. Methods. Calibration activities at component level and end-to-end calibration of the instrument were performed at PTB/MLS synchrotron light source (Berlin, Germany) and the SOLEIL synchrotron (Orsay, France). Each component optical property is measured and compared to its semi-empirical model. This pre-flight characterization is used to estimate the parameters of the semi-empirical models. The end-to-end response is measured and validated by comparison with calibration measurements, as well as with its main design performance requirements. Results. The telescope spectral response semi-empirical model is validated by the pre-flight end-to-end ground calibration of the instrument. It is found that HRIEUV is a highly efficient solar EUV telescope with a peak efficiency superior to 1 e−.ph−1, low detector noise (≈2.8 e rms), low dark current at operating temperature, and a pixel saturation above 120 ke- in low-gain or combined image mode. The ground calibration also confirms a well-modelled spectral selectivity and rejection, and low stray light. The EUI instrument achieves a state-of-the-art performance in terms of signal-to-noise and spatial resolution.