EN
The magnetic structure of Ni_{80}Fe_{20}/Au/Co/Au multilayers characterized by easy-plane and easy-axis perpendicular to the sample plane anisotropies for NiFe and Co, respectively, is strongly modified by magnetostatic coupling resulting from stray fields of stripe domains in the Co layers. Using complementary methods it will be shown that the magnetostatic coupling increases with decreasing Au spacer thickness, with the weakening of the easy plane anisotropy of the NiFe layers and with increasing thickness of the Co layers.