Vacuum Tower Telescope, Teide Observatory

The Vacuum Tower Telescope is an evacuated-optics

solar telescope A solar telescope is a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun. Solar telescopes usually detect light with wavelengths in, or not far outside, the visible spectrum. Obsolete names for Sun telescopes include heliograph and photoheliograph ...

located at the

Teide Observatory Teide Observatory ( es, Observatorio del Teide), IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at , located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It bec ...

Tenerife Tenerife (; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands. It is home to 43% of the total population of the archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitants as of Janu ...

in the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

. It is operated by the

Kiepenheuer-Institut für Sonnenphysik The Leibniz Institute for Solar Physics (aka: KIS; german: Leibniz-Institut für Sonnenphysik), formerly known as Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics (KIS) is a research institute located in Freiburg, Germany. As a member of the Leibniz Asso ...

(KIS).Kiepenheuer-Institut für Sonnenphysik (KIS)
/ref> It was built between 1983 and 1986, with first light in 1988. It has a 70-centimetre (28-inch) diameter

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 ...

and a

focal length The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light; it is the inverse of the system's optical power. A positive focal length indicates that a system converges light, while a negative foca ...

of . Thanks to an

adaptive optics Adaptive optics (AO) is a technology used to improve the performance of optical systems by reducing the effect of incoming wavefront distortions by deforming a mirror in order to compensate for the distortion. It is used in astronomical tele ...

system ''KAOS'' (''K''iepenheuer-institute ''A''daptive ''O''ptic ''S''ystem), in operation since spring 2000, it is able to resolve details down to 0.2 arc seconds (150 km) on 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 ...

's surface.

Description

The VTT and the GREGOR are operated by four German institutes: the Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, the Kiepenheuer-Institut für Sonnenphysik (Freiburg, chair), the Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung (Lindau), and the Universitäts-Sternwarte Göttingen. The telescope is used for scientific observations from mid April through mid December. Typically 30 to 40 observing campaigns are carried out every year.

History

In the early seventies, the 40cm Newton-telescope, built at the Kiepenheuer-Institut, was installed at the Observatorio del Teide. In 1982, the Federal Republic of Germany joined the international Agreement on the Cooperation in Astrophysical Research between Spain, Great Britain, Sweden and Denmark. Construction work for the German solar telescopes started in 1983, including the Vacuum Tower Telescope (VTT), and the Gregory-Coudé-Telescope (GCT) of the Universitäts-Sternwarte Göttingen. The VTT has been developed at the Kiepenheuer-Institut in Freiburg during the mid seventies. The telescope was installed in 1986 and the scientific operations started in 1988. Since then, the VTT has been constantly improved and has been the ?working horse"" for our researchers. The GCT was put into operation in 1985 and was finally dismantled in 2002, in order to make room for the new 1.5m-telescope GREGOR.

Results

The VTT instrumentation is designed for high-quality measurements of plasma flows and magnetic fields. Some instruments can be combined for simultaneous observations in different parts of the solar spectrum, from the near infrared to the near UV. This possibility is a unique feature for a solar telescope and allows to reveal the three-dimensional structure of the solar atmosphere. With the help of adaptive optics and suitable image reconstruction techniques it is now possible to observe physical properties of small-scale objects on the solar surface with sizes of only 150 km, at the theoretical limit of the telescope. The pictures show a small region of the solar surface with two dark pores. The panel on the right shows how the plasma moves: red is downward motion and blue is upward, the total range is from -1.4 km/s to +1.4 km/s.

References

External links

German Solar Telescopes
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Telescope Information: Vacuum Tower Telescope
Telescopes Solar telescopes {{Sun-stub

Description

History

Results

See also

References

External links