GREGOR is a
solar telescope, equipped with a 1.5 m primary mirror, located at 2,390 m altitude 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 beca ...
on
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, archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitant ...
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 Mo ...
. It replaces the older
Gregory Coudé Telescope and was inaugurated on May 21, 2012.
First light, using a 1 metre test mirror, was on .
[First light was obtained with a 1-meter test-mirror due to manufacturing issues with the main mirror]
GREGOR is the third-largest solar telescope in the world, after the
Big Bear Observatory and the
McMath-Pierce solar telescope. It is aimed at observing the solar
photosphere
The photosphere is a star's outer shell from which light is radiated.
The term itself is derived from Ancient Greek roots, φῶς, φωτός/''phos, photos'' meaning "light" and σφαῖρα/''sphaira'' meaning "sphere", in reference to it ...
and
chromosphere at visible and infrared wavelengths. GREGOR sports a high-order
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 tel ...
(AO) system with a 256-actuator
deformable mirrors and a 156-subaperture
Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor. Efforts are underway to implement multi-conjugate AO in 2014.
2014-2020
2020 upgrade
Initial astigmatism was fixed during an upgrade with some corrective optics: two off-axis parabolic mirrors.
[''Europe's largest Solar Telescope GREGOR unveils magnetic details of the Sun'' Sept 2020]
/ref>
See also
*
*
*
*
*List of solar telescopes
This is a list of solar telescopes built in various countries around the world. A solar telescope is a specialized telescope that is used to observe the Sun.
This list contains ground-based professional observatory telescopes at optical wavelength ...
References
Sources
*
Solar telescopes
Buildings and structures in Tenerife
{{sun-stub