First Images and Initial In-Flight Performance of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager On-Board Solar Orbiter.

The Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) on board Solar Orbiter is composed of two High Resolution Imagers working at 121.6 (HRI-LYA, H I, chromosphere) and 17.4 nm (HRI-EUV, Fe IX/X, corona) and one dual-band Full Sun Imager (FSI) working at 30.4 nm (He II, transition region) and 17.4 nm (Fe IX/X, corona). During the commissioning period following the launch of Solar Orbiter and two and a half months of outgassing, EUI acquired its first solar images on May 12th, 2020 at about 0.67 AU. Most of the capabilities of the instrument have been tested during the following weeks, which revealed excellent overall performance. HRI-EUV already provided images with an angular resolution equivalent to ~0.6" (2 pixels) at 1 A.U. HRI-LYA will routinely provide images of the Sun at Lyman alpha, which have been otherwise relatively rare, with sub-second cadence capability. FSI will provide context for connection science but it will also explore regions of the corona never imaged before at EUV wavelengths, owing to its 3.8° field of view. EUI uses a complex on-board image processing system including advanced image compression and event detection algorithms. In particular, commissioning tests confirm the good performance of the compression, which is critical given the limited total telemetry volume imposed by the mission profile. In this paper, we present the main characteristics of the first images taken in each channel and we provide an initial assessment of the in-flight performance.