The New Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory
Abstract
The New Solar Telescope (NST) at Big Bear Solar Observatory is the replacement of the current 65 cm vacuum telescope. We present the optical design of this novel off-axis telescope with a 1.6 m clear aperture. The NST has been designed to exploit the excellent seeing conditions at a lake-site observatory and provide data with a spatial resolution close the telescope's diffraction limit from the visible to the near-infrared (NIR) wavelength region. The post-focus instrumentation is located in the Coudé-room, a new optical laboratory below the observing floor, which also hosts a high-order adaptive optics system. The main instruments are two imaging spectro-polarimeters for visible and NIR observations and a real-time image reconstruction system for visible-light multi-color photometry. This unique combination of instruments will realize its full potential in the studies of active region evolution and space weather forecasts.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #204
- Pub Date:
- May 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004AAS...204.6908D