Extreme ultraviolet solar images televised in-flight with a rocket-borne SEC vidicon system.

A TV image of the entire sun while an importance 2N solar flare was in progress was recorded in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation band 171-630 A and was transmitted to ground from an Aerobee-150 rocket on Nov. 4, 1969 using S-band telemetry. The camera tube was a SEC vidicon, with its fiber optic faceplate coated with an XUV-to-visible conversion layer of p-quaterphenyl. The XUV passband was produced by three 1000-A thick aluminum filters in series together with the platinized reflecting surface of the off-axis paraboloid that imaged the sun. A number of images were recorded with integration times between 1/30 sec and 2 sec. Reconstruction of pictures was enhanced by combining several to reduce the noise.