The proton and electron aurora as seen by IMAGE-FUV and FAST

H. Frey (1), S. Mende (1), C. Carlson (1), H. Heetderks (1), M. Lampton (1), J. Stock (1), O. Siegmund (1), 
A. Tremsin (1), T. Immel (1), J. Gerard, (2), B. Hubert (2), S. Habraken (3), C. Jamar (3), J. Spann (4), and 
G. R. Gladstone (5)

1 - University of California, Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, CA
2 - University of Liege, LPAP, Liege, Belgium
3 - University of Liege, CSL, Liege, Belgium
4 - NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC
5 - Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX

The FUV instrument on IMAGE images the aurora in three different wavelength regions.  The Wide-Band Imaging Camera 
(WIC) observes the molecular LBH and atomic nitrogen emissions at 140-190 nm.  The two channels of the 
Spectrographic Imager (SI) observe the Doppler shifted Lyman Alpha emission of precipitating protons at 121.8 nm 
(SI12) and the mostly electron produced emission from atomic oxygen at 135.6 nm (SI13).  The major advantage of 
FUV compared to previously flown UV imagers is the simultaneous operation of all three imaging systems without the 
need for filter changes and the uncertainty of temporal changes of the aurora between exposures.  The FAST 
satellite passes every two hours through FUV images during apogee operations.  This enables a comparison between 
the remotely imaged particle precipitation and the in-situ measurements along the FAST track.  The detailed 
analysis of images from all three systems during quiet times together with a full simulation of auroral emissions 
based on in-situ measurements by FAST confirms the laboratory calibrations of FUV.  The spatial resolution and 
image quality of WIC permits the observation of a good correspondence between in-situ and remote measurements of 
precipitation boundaries.  The clear separation between the lower latitude proton precipitation and the more 
structured higher latitude electron precipitation is obtained with both SI-channels.

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Presented at the Fall American Geophysical Union Meeting, 
San Francisco, CA., December 15-19, 2000