The Sunrise balloon-borne solar observatory consists of a 1m aperture Gregory telescope, a UV filter imager, an imaging vector polarimeter, an image stabilization system and further infrastructure. The first science flight of Sunrise yielded high-quality data that reveal the structure, dynamics and evolution of solar convection, oscillations and magnetic fields at a resolution of around 100 km in the quiet Sun.

Overview

The strong absorption of UV radiation by the Earth's atmosphere makes it challenging to carry out ground-based observations at these wavelengths. A balloon mission reaching altitudes of above 30 km benefits from a reduction of UV absorption by 99%, making engineering solutions for the telescope easier. The launch site was in the

arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...

region to make uninterrupted observation of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

over several days possible. The telescope has a 1

metre The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...

primary mirror A primary mirror (or primary) is the principal light-gathering surface (the objective) of a reflecting telescope. Description The primary mirror of a reflecting telescope is a spherical or parabolic shaped disks of polished reflective metal ...

that directs the 1 kW of solar radiation to the first focal point where 99% of the radiation is reflected out of the telescope, the remaining light is transferred into several instruments. The one metre diameter primary mirror is made from a glass ceramic

zerodur Zerodur (notation of the manufacturer: ZERODUR®), registered trademarkof Schott AG, is a lithium-aluminosilicate glass-ceramic produced by Schott AG since 1968. It has been used for a number of very large telescope mirrors including GTC, Keck ...

, it is the central part of the gondola of nearly 2 tons.

Solar panel A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a photo ...

s of 1.5 kW output power are used to power the onboard equipment and a

hard disk A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

array of 2 x 2.4 Terabyte is used to store the data during flight.

Instruments

*CWS, Correlating Wavefront Sensor is a CCD camera with 1 kHz read-outs responsible generate the images necessary for

image stabilization Image stabilization (IS) is a family of techniques that reduce blurring associated with the motion of a camera or other imaging device during exposure. Generally, it compensates for pan and tilt (angular movement, equivalent to yaw and pit ...

and proper alignment. *SUFI, Sunrise Filter Imager observes the sun in five distinct wavelengths 214, 300, 312, 388 and 397 nm, on a 2048 x 2048 pixel CCD, through a filter wheele. *IMaX, Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment observes the

Zeeman splitting The Zeeman effect (; ) is the effect of splitting of a spectral line into several components in the presence of a static magnetic field. It is named after the Dutch physicist Pieter Zeeman, who discovered it in 1896 and received a Nobel prize ...

of the iron line (FeI) around 525 nm. The observed field of view is 50 x 50 arcseconds.

Flights

# Sunrise's first flight was launched at 8:05 8 June 2009 local time from

Esrange Esrange Space Center (short form Esrange) is a rocket range and research centre located about 40 kilometers east of the town of Kiruna in northern Sweden. It is a base for scientific research with high-altitude balloons, investigation of the au ...

, near

Kiruna (; se, Giron ; fi, Kiiruna ) is the northernmost Stad (Sweden), city in Sweden, situated in the province of Lapland, Sweden, Lapland. It had 17,002 inhabitants in 2016 and is the seat of Kiruna Municipality (population: 23,167 in 2016) in Norr ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

and it landed 1:45 14 June 2009 local time on Somerset Island,

Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' ...

, northern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

after a flight duration nearly six days. # Sunrise's second flight was launched at 7:38 (5:38 UTC) on 12 June 2013 from

, near

, and it landed afternoon 17 June 2013 on

Boothia peninsula Boothia Peninsula (; formerly ''Boothia Felix'', Inuktitut ''Kingngailap Nunanga'') is a large peninsula in Nunavut's northern Canadian Arctic, south of Somerset Island. The northern part, Murchison Promontory, is the northernmost point of ...

, northern

after a flight duration of over 5 days. # Sunrise's third flight is scheduled for July 2022 from

, near

,. The third edition of sunrise is a step forward in terms of onboard instrumentation, with three new instruments, SUSI, SCIP, and TuMAG.

References

External links

Sunrise website
at MPG.de
Sunrise website
at GWDG.de

by StratoCat * Video of the launch from Esrange in 2009
part 1
an
part 2
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sunrise (Telescope) Balloon-borne telescopes Solar telescopes Ultraviolet telescopes

Overview

Instruments

Flights

See also

References

External links