Multimedia Gallery
New Telescope for Long-term Studies
New Telescope for Long-term Studies
The SOLIS facility atop it's observing tower on Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.
The Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun (SOLIS) is a new facility for solar observations over a long period of time. It is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and designed and built by the National Solar Observatory (NSO). SOLIS has three telescopes--for full-disk and active region vector solar magnetic fields in the photosphere and chromosphere, multi-wavelength images of the whole solar disk, and the total "Sun as a star" spectrum--to provide unique, continuous observations of the Sun for several decades using state-of-the-art techniques. These long-term studies of the astronomical object most important to humanity will provide fundamental data to understand the solar activity cycle, sudden energy releases in the solar atmosphere, and solar irradiance changes and their relationship to global change. NSO plans two more stations to produce a global SOLIS network. (Date of Image: unknown)
Credit: Kevin Schramm, NSO/AURA/NSF
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