Metis Team

A solar coronagraph is a telescope equipped with an occultation system that allows the instrument to observe the solar corona by blocking the bright disk light. Although ground based coronagraphs do exist, they have to struggle with the sky brightness, that limits the operability of the instrument and its field of view. Space coronagraphs have flown since the OSO missions in the sixties till the current presence in space of several assets that image the solar corona from different point of views. A coronagraph explores the region where the solar wind is accelerated and where the most dramatic evolution of coronal transients like CMEs and prominence eruptions takes place. Observations in the UV increase the science return of such instruments. The Metis coronagraph on board Solar Orbiter provides for the first time simultaneous ultraviolet and visible light images of the solar corona, allowing to apply the Doppler dimming technique and retrieve the wind velocity on the plane of the sky.