Nasmyth focus instrumentation of the New Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory

Wenda Cao; Nicolas Gorceix; Roy Coulter; Friedrich Wöger; Kwangsu Ahn; Sergiy Shumko; John Varsik; Aaron Coulter; Philip R. Goode

doi:10.1117/12.856613

20 July 2010 Nasmyth focus instrumentation of the New Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory

Wenda Cao, Nicolas Gorceix, Roy Coulter, Friedrich Wöger, Kwangsu Ahn, Sergiy Shumko, John Varsik, Aaron Coulter, Philip R. Goode

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7735, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy III; 77355V (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.856613
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2010, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The largest solar telescope, the 1.6-m New Solar Telescope (NST) has been installed and is being commissioned at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). It has an off-axis Gregorian configuration with a focal ratio of F/52. Early in 2009, first light scientific observations were successfully made at the Nasmyth focus, which is located on the east side of the telescope structure. As the first available scientific instruments for routine observation, Nasmyth focus instrumentation (NFI) consists of several filtergraphs offering high spatial resolution photometry in G-band 430 nm, Ha 656 nm, TiO 706 nm, and covering the near infrared 1083 nm, 1.6 μm, and 2.2 μm. With the assistance of a local correlation tracker system, diffraction limited images were obtained frequently over a field-of-view of 70 by 70 after processed using a post-facto speckle reconstruction algorithm. These data sets not only serve for scientific analysis with an unprecedented spatial resolution, but also provide engineering feedback to the NST operation, maintenance and optimization. This paper reports on the design and the implementation of NFI in detail. First light scientific observations are presented and discussed.

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Wenda Cao, Nicolas Gorceix, Roy Coulter, Friedrich Wöger, Kwangsu Ahn, Sergiy Shumko, John Varsik, Aaron Coulter, and Philip R. Goode "Nasmyth focus instrumentation of the New Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory", Proc. SPIE 7735, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy III, 77355V (20 July 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.856613

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