The tandem etalon magnetograph of the Solar Magnetic Activity Research Telescope (SMART) at hida observatory

Abstract

The imaging photospheric magnetograph using tandem Fabry-Perot filters is newly installed in the Solar Magnetic Activity Research Telescope (SMART) of Hida Observatory, Kyoto University. The instrument, Tandem Etalon Magnetograph (TEM), consists of a rotating wave plate, tandem Fabry-Perot filters which scan the Fei 6302.5 Å line with ∼130 mÅ bandwidth, a polarizing beam splitter, and two CCD cameras simultaneously taking orthogonally polarized light with a frame rate of 30 frames per second. We have confirmed that the Stokes vector map deduced from 20s integration achieves a polarimetric sensitivity of ∼5 × 10-4 for all polarization states at one wavelength, which is higher than is achieved with a space instrument such as the Spectro-Polarimeter aboard Hinode or the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager aboard the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO). We expect the complementary observations by SMART/TEM, Hinode, and SDO can shed new light on the trigger and energy storage mechanism of solar flares. © 2014 The Author.