The Structure and Topology of the High Corona and It's Significance To Modeling and Prediction

Imaging of coronal structure at EUV and X-Ray wavelengths beyond 0.5 solar radii above the photosphere, has until recently only been done occasionally using special off points of nominally sun-center pointed imagers with fields of view of 1.3-1.5 times the angular solar diameter. Now there are various observations either already done, planned, or proposed, which are or will image the higher corona more continuously, using various current or proposed EUV and X-Ray telescopes. These efforts are to some degree exploratory, as the benefits of such high corona imagery to our understanding of the structure, dynamics and behavior of the high corona, and for space weather forecasting, cannot be completely predicted until such data are available and incorporated into models. In this presentation we discuss the value of continuous imaging the larger scale structure and topology of the coronal magnetic canopy at radii beyond 0.5 solar radii above the photosphere for the improvement of models and predictions based upon knowledge of the canopy structure which currently can only be estimated by extrapolation from the structure in the low corona. How can this more complete picture of the coronal canopy structure, topology, and dynamics, on short and long timescales, help modeling and prediction?