GIS and NIS

GIS and NIS are complementary instruments which together cover the wavelength range 150-800 Angstroms.

The coverage of the shorter wavelength range is crucial for diagnostics of the hottest plasma.

The benefit of CDS being a double spectrometer is that is has the wide wavelength range of GIS combined with the stigmatic imaging performance of NIS. Instruments prior to CDS did not deliver the unambiguous spatial and spectral information, high time resolution and long duration mission times that are provided together by CDS.

The strength of CDS is that GIS and NIS can be used to observe the same region of the Sun; with NIS scanning the chosen region to provide context and stimatic imaging, followed by GIS scanning the region to provide the wide wavelength coverage. The spectral resolution of the 2 detectors in NIS are approximately 0.35 A and 0.5 A. The spectral resolution in the four GIS detectors is approximately 0.5 A.

For a list of selected GIS studies click here.

If you would like to search for a study that uses a particular slit, exposure time and raster area the routine find_cds_studies can be used.

IDL> find_cds_studies, output