Metis coronagraph ray trace. The UV and the visible-light channels are depicted separately for visualization purposes, but the two components follow the same path until the dichroic filter. The solar light enters the instrument through the inverted external occulter (IEO), and the Sun disk light is reflected by the M0 mirror out of the instrument. A primary (M1) and a secondary (M2) mirror collect the coronal light together with the light diffracted by the IEO and M0. This second component is blocked thanks to the presence of the internal occulter (IO) and the Lyot stop (LS). Finally, the coronal light is split into the two observational components by the dichroic filter and directed toward the respective detectors. Before reaching the detector, the visible-light component passes through the polarimeter assembly, here shown broken down into its optical elements.