Space and Physics
3Comments
The Vacuum Tower Telescope (VTT) at the Observatorio del Teide on Tenerife has been operating since 1988. In these four decades, it has done great work in studying the Sun, but thanks to a new camera, the best is yet to come. The setup, developed by the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), can take 100 short-time-exposure images in 4 seconds, which can be combined into an 8K resolution image.
The work sits in the sweet spot between the full-disk views of the Sun taken by smaller telescopes and even spacecraft around our star, and the more zoomed-in view that large solar telescopes have. They usually have image fields of around 75,000 kilometers (47,000 miles) in diameter, while VTT's is 200,000 kilometers (125,000 miles), so that the large-scale structures in the active Sun and its behavior are clearer in context.
“Our expectations of the camera system were more than fulfilled right from the start,” Robert Kamlah, who carried out the project as part of his doctoral thesis at the AIP and the University of Potsdam, said in a statement.
Thanks to the fast imaging, the disturbance of Earth’s atmosphere is taken care of and eliminated from the final processed image. The telescope can see details as small as 100 kilometers (61 miles) on the surface of the Sun. It can also create timelapses of processes in the Sun on the scale of 20 seconds.
“In order to better understand solar activity, it is crucial not only to analyze the fundamental processes of the fine structure and the long-term development of global activity with various instruments,” added Rolf Schlichenmaier, scientist at the Institute for Solar Physics, “but also to investigate the temporal evolution of the magnetic field in active regions.”
The setup has special filters that allow researchers to see specific layers of the solar “surface” and lower atmosphere of the Sun, which are called the photosphere and the chromosphere. The plasma motion in those areas underpins the evolution of sunspots, so the new camera opens up a high-resolution approach to the study of those movements.
“The results obtained show how, together with our partners, we are teaching an old telescope new tricks,” added Carsten Denker, Head of the Solar Physics Section at the AIP.
The VTT is 0.7 meters (2.3 feet) across. A camera setup like the new one on much larger telescopes might get to even higher resolutions.
