Advanced Technology Solar Telescope: a progress report

Abstract

The four-meter Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) will be the most powerful solar telescope and the world’s leading resource for studying solar magnetism that controls the solar wind, flares, coronal mass ejections and variability in the Sun’s output. Development of a four-meter solar telescope presents many technical challenges (e.g., thermal control of the enclosure, telescope structure and optics). We give a status report of the ATST project (e.g., system design reviews, instrument PDR, Haleakalā site environmental impact statement progress) and summarize the design of the major subsystems, including the telescope mount assembly, enclosure, mirror assemblies, wavefront correction, and instrumentation.