Science and Space

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Swedish Solar Telescope

The Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope (SST) on the island of La Palma, Spain, had first light with a stopped down 60 cm aperture on March 2, 2002. On May 21, the telescope was opened to full aperture and the adaptive optics system was switched on for the first time. SST has very small optical aberrations after compensation by the adaptive optics system, designed to counteract blurring caused by the atmosphere. This enables solar astronomers to see and photograph solar details of smaller size than previously possible.

The SST will address current and important questions concerning solar magnetic fields and the dynamics of the upper solar atmosphere and will also be used to improve our understanding of the formation of stellar spectra

It is run by the Institute for Solar Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

The SST is a vacuum telescope - meaning that it is evacuated internally to avoid disruption of the image from air inside. This is a particular problem with solar telescopes because of the heating from the large amounts of light collected being passed on to any air causing image degradation. As of 2005 it has produced the highest resolution images on the Sun of any telescope,.

posted by: kyawoo at 20:17 | link | comments |
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