PROJECT NAME

Hemera

SHORT DESCRIPTION

HEMERA is an infrastructure project for the flight of stratospheric balloons with scientific payload, founded by the European Commission, within the Horizon 2020 program, and coordinated by the French Space Agency CNES. The consortium involves 13 partners from six european countries and from Canada. The user community can flight their scientific instrumentation on stratospheric Zero Pressure Balloons (at altitudes of about 35 kilometers) from the range Esrange (North of Sweden, above the Artic Polar Circle),or from that of Timmins (Ontario, Canada).

ROLE

Staff OATo is involved in the HEMERA project with the telescope CorMag, an internally occulted coronagraph for the study of the solar corona in the Fe XIV green line at 530 nm, with a field of view from 1.2 to about 3 solar radii. This coronagraph is designed for the study of the coronal magnetic field topology, and has the capability of acquiring linearly polarized images of the corona, both in the band of the green line (band-width: 0,5 nm), and off-band. It is the first instrument of this kind, designed for a flight with a stratospheric balloon. The advantage of observing from high altitudes in the stratophere is the virtual absence of the atmosferic scattering, one of the worst obstacles for the coronal observations from ground. This instrument benefits from the heritage of the projects ASPIICS and Antarcticor, and the last one has been its prototype.

TIMELINE

2020-2021

WEB SITE
CONTACTS

Silvano Fineschi Email: silvano.fineschi at inaf.it

Luca Zangrilli Email: luca.zangrilli at inaf.it