Progress on the 1.6-meter New Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory

The New Solar Telescope (NST) project at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) now has all major contracts for design and fabrication in place and construction of components is well underway. NST is a collaboration between BBSO, the Korean Astronomical Observatory (KAO) and Institute for Astronomy (IfA) at the University of Hawaii. The project will install a 1.6-meter, off-axis telescope at BBSO, replacing a number of older solar telescopes. The NST will be located in a recently refurbished dome on the BBSO causeway, which projects 300 meters into the Big Bear Lake. Recent site surveys have confirmed that BBSO is one of the premier solar observing sites in the world. NST will be uniquely equipped to take advantage of the long periods of excellent seeing common at the lake site. An up-to-date progress report will be presented including an overview of the project and details on the current state of the design. The report provides a detailed description of the optical design, the thermal control of the new dome, the optical support structure, the telescope control systems, active and adaptive optics systems, and the post-focus instrumentation for high-resolution spectro-polarimetry.

[1]  Philip R. Goode,et al.  Diffraction‐limited Polarimetry from the Infrared Imaging Magnetograph at Big Bear Solar Observatory , 2006 .

[2]  Jose Marino,et al.  First results from the NSO/NJIT solar adaptive optics system , 2004, SPIE Optics + Photonics.

[3]  Carsten J. Denker,et al.  The thermal control of the new solar telescope at Big Bear Observatory , 2006, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[4]  Haimin Wang,et al.  Near Real-Time Image Reconstruction , 2001 .

[5]  Sergiy Shumko,et al.  Imaging magnetographs for high‐resolution solar observations in the visible and near‐infrared wavelength region , 2003 .

[6]  Robert P. Hubbard,et al.  Advanced Technology Solar Telescope: conceptual design and status , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[7]  Harold Zirin,et al.  The Caltech solar site survey, 1965–1967 , 1988 .

[8]  Sergiy Shumko,et al.  Object-oriented communications for the New Solar Telescope's telescope control system: design and implementation , 2006, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[9]  Thomas Berkefeld,et al.  The new 1.5 solar telescope GREGOR: progress report and results of performance tests , 2005, SPIE Optics + Photonics.

[10]  PHILIP R. GOODE,et al.  SOLAR TELESCOPE IN BIG BEAR – THE NST , 2003 .

[11]  Hubert M. Martin,et al.  Manufacture of 8.4-m off-axis segments: a 1/5-scale demonstration , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[12]  Philip R. Goode,et al.  High‐order adaptive optical system for Big Bear Solar Observatory , 2003 .

[13]  J. R. Varsik,et al.  Design of a telescope pointing and tracking subsystem for the Big Bear Solar Observatory New Solar Telescope , 2006, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[14]  Guo Yang.  Design and implementation of the primary and secondary mirror control system for NST , 2006, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[15]  A. P. Verdoni,et al.  The telescope control system of the New Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory , 2006, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[16]  Philip R. Goode,et al.  High-Spatial-Resolution Imaging Combining High-Order Adaptive Optics, Frame Selection, and Speckle Masking Reconstruction , 2005 .

[17]  Jose Teran,et al.  Unique dome design for the SOAR telescope project , 2000, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[18]  Haosheng Lin,et al.  Solar site testing for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[19]  Carsten J. Denker,et al.  IRIM: An Imaging Magnetograph for High-Resoultion Solar Observations in the Near-Infrared , 2003, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[20]  Carsten J. Denker,et al.  Integrating seeing measurements into the operations of solar telescopes , 2006, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[21]  M. Collados,et al.  Solar Site Survey for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope. I. Analysis of the Seeing Data , 2005, astro-ph/0508690.

[22]  Thomas Rimmele,et al.  High-order adaptive optical system for Big Bear Solar Observatory , 2003, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.