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 wavelengths in chronological order. Solar telescopes often have multiple focal lengths, and use a various combination of mirrors such as coelostats, lenses, and tubes for instruments including spectrographs, cameras, or coronagraphs. There are many types of instruments that have been designed to observe Earth's Sun, for example, in the 20th century solar towers were common.

Large solar telescopes after 1900

Name/Observatory	Image	Aperture d.	Year(s)	Location	Country(s)	Note
COronal Solar Magnetism Observatory (COSMO)[1]	-	150 cm	proposed	Hawaii, USA	United States
Chinese Large Solar Telescope	-	180 cm	constructing	Western part of China	China
National Large Solar Telescope	-	200 cm	proposed[2]	Merak Village, Ladakh, India	India
Chinese Giant Solar Telescope	-	500–800 cm	planned	Western part of China	China
European Solar Telescope (EST)[3]	-	400+ cm	planned	Canary Islands	15 European countries[4]
Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope		424 cm[5]	under construction [6]	Maui, Hawaii, USA	United States	Built, First light planned for 2019
GREGOR, Teide Obs.		150 cm	2012–	Tenerife, Spain	Germany	[7]
Goode Solar Telescope (GST), Big Bear Solar Observatory		160 cm	2008–	California, United States	United States	Located in a lake. Largest aperture optical solar telescope in the world now.
New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST)	-	100 cm	2010–	Yunnan Astronomical Observatory, China	China	100 cm vacuum solar telescope[8]
ONSET (Optical and Near-Infrared Solar Eruption Tracer)	-	3x27,5 cm	2010–	School of Astronomy & Space Science, Nanjing University, China	China	The ONSET consists of four tubes: (1) a near-infrared vacuum tube, with an aperture of 27.5 cm, (2) a chromospheric vacuum tube, with an aperture of 27.5 cm, (3) a WL vacuum tube, with an aperture of 20 cm and (4) a guiding tube.[9]
Bulgarian 15-cm Solar Coronagraph,[10] NAO - Rozhen	-	100 cm	2005–	Rozhen, Bulgaria	Bulgaria
Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope[11](SST), ORM		100 cm	2002–	La Palma, Spain	Sweden
Prairie View Solar Observatory (PVSO)		35 cm	1999–	Texas, USA	United States
Dutch Open Telescope (DOT), ORM		45 cm	1997–	La Palma, Spain	Netherlands
THÉMIS Solar Telescope, Teide Obs.		90 cm	1996–	Tenerife, Spain	Italy and  France
Vacuum Tower Telescope (VTT),[12] Teide Obs.		70 cm	1989–	Tenerife, Spain	Germany
Swedish Vacuum Solar Telescope, ORM	-	47.5 cm	1985–2000	La Palma, Spain	Sweden	Replaced by the SST
Hida Domeless Solar Telescope[13] (ja)	-	60 cm	1979–	Takayama, Gifu, Japan	Japan
Udaipur Solar Observatory MAST Full Disk H-alpha Telescope H-alpha Spar Telescope Coudé Telescope		50 cm 15 cm 25 cm 15 cm	1976–	Udaipur, India	India
Richard B. Dunn Solar Telescope (DST), Sacramento Peak		76 cm	1969–	Sunspot Solar Observatory, Sunspot, New Mexico, USA	United States
Solar Observatory Tower Meudon		60 cm	1968–	Meudon, France	France
McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope, KPO		161 cm	1961–	Arizona, USA	United States	Previously the largest aperture optical and infrared solar telescope
ARIES Observatory	-	15 cm	1961–	Nainital, India	India
Locarno Gregory Coude Telescope (GCT)[14]		45 cm[5]	1959–2002	Tenerife, Spain (1984–2002) Locarno, Switzerland (1959–1984)	Germany	Replaced by GREGOR
Solar Tunnel Telescope, Kodaikanal Solar Observatory		61 cm (24 in)	1958–[15]	Kodaikanal, India	India
Evans Solar Facility (ESF)[16], Sacramento Peak		40 cm	1953–2014	Sunspot Solar Observatory, Sunspot, New Mexico, USA	United States	Also a coronagraph
Göttinger Sonnenturm (Solar Tower Telescope, Zeiss 1942)		2x15 cm 11 cm	1942–2004	Göttingen, Germany	Germany	65 cm-Coelostat by Zeiss, feeding light into several small light paths in tower
McMath-Hulbert Observatory	-	61 cm (24")	1941–1979	Michigan, USA	United States
50-foot tower, McMath-Hulbert Observatory	-	40 cm	1936–1979	Michigan, USA	United States
10.5 inch, McMath-Hulbert Observatory	-	26.7 cm (10.5")	1930–1941	Michigan, USA	United States	Replaced by the 24 inch
Solar Tower Telescope by Zeiss[17]	-	45 cm	1930–end	Tokyo, Japan	Japan
Arcetri solar tower		37 cm	1925-2006	Arcetri, Italy	Italy
Einsteinturm		60 cm	1924–	Potsdam, Germany	Germany
150-foot tower,[5] Mount Wilson Observatory		35 cm (24")	1912–	California, USA	United States
Snow Solar Telescope,[18] Mount Wilson Observatory	-	61 cm (24")	1904–	California, USA	United States	first solar tower telescope
Lerebour/Grubb-Parsons, Kodaikanal Solar Observatory		20 cm	1901–	Kodaikanal, India	India (1947- )  United Kingdom (1901–1950)

Telescopes for the sun have existed for hundreds of years, this list is not complete and only goes back to 1900.

Other types of solar telescopes

There are much smaller commercial and/or amateur telescopes such as Coronado Filters from founder and designer David Lunt, bought by Meade Instruments in 2004 and sells SolarMax solar telescopes up to 8 cm^[19][20]

Most solar observatories observe optically at visible, UV, and near infrared wavelengths, but other things can be observed.

• CERN Axion Solar Telescope(CAST), looks for solar axions in the early 2000s
• Multi-spectral solar telescope array (MSSTA), a rocket launched payload of UV telescopes in the 1990s
• Leoncito Astronomical Complex, has a submillimeter wavelength solar telescope.
• Owens Valley Solar Array, for solar radio observation

References

Further reading

• BBSO List of large solar telescopes by aperture

See also

• Solar tower (astronomy)
• List of largest optical reflecting telescopes
• List of largest optical refracting telescopes
• Solar Observing Optical Network
• Map of solar groundbased observatories and neutron monitors