The 1.6 m off-axis New Solar Telescope (NST) in Big Bear

Philip R. Goode, Wenda Cao

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

47 Scopus citations

Abstract

The 1.6-m New Solar Telescope (NST) has been used to observe the Sun for more than three years with ever increasing capabilities as its commissioning phase winds down. The NST is the first facility-class solar telescope built in the U.S. in a generation, and it has an off-axis design as is planned for the 4 m Advanced Technology Solar Telescope. Lessons learned will be discussed. Current NST post-focus instrumentation includes adaptive optics (AO) feeding photometric and near-IR polarimetric sytems, as well as an imaging spectrograph. On-going instrumentation projects will be sketched, including Multi-Conjugate AO (MCAO), next generation (dual Fabry-Pérot) visible light and near-IR polarimeters and a fully cryogenic spectrograph. Finally, recent observational results illustrating the high resolution capabilities of the NST will be shown.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationGround-Based and Airborne Telescopes IV
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012
EventGround-Based and Airborne Telescopes IV - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Duration: Jul 1 2012Jul 6 2012

Publication series

NameProceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Volume8444
ISSN (Print)0277-786X

Other

OtherGround-Based and Airborne Telescopes IV
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityAmsterdam
Period7/1/127/6/12

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Applied Mathematics
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Keywords

  • Imaging
  • Photometry
  • Solar observation
  • Telescope

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