National Large Solar Telescope

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National Large Solar Telescope
Location(s) Ladakh, India
Telescope style Gregorian telescope
solar telescope   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

The National Large Solar Telescope (NLST) is a Gregorian multi-purpose open telescope [1] proposed in 2010 to be built in Merak village in Ladakh in India and aims to study the sun's microscopic structure. [2]

Contents

The Indian Institute of Astrophysics is the nodal agency charged with various scientific bodies like the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational-Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) also participating. [3]

Location

The proposed site for the location of the telescope is Merak village in Ladakh, India. The village is near Pangong Lake. [3]

Telescope

NLST is proposed to be on-axis alt-azimuth Gregorian multi-purpose open telescope with the provision of carrying out night time stellar observations using a spectrograph. [1] It hopes to resolve features on the Sun of the size of about 0.1 arcsec. The focal plane instruments are to include a high resolution polarimeteric package to measure polarization with an accuracy of 0.01 per cent; a high spectral resolution spectrograph to obtain spectra in 5 widely separated absorption lines simultaneously and high spatial resolution narrow band imagers in various lines. [4]

See also

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Merak is a village on the southern banks of Pangong Tso, near Spangmik on the south India-China border in the Leh District, Ladakh.

References

  1. 1 2 Hasan, S. S. (1 February 2010). "The Indian National Large Solar Telescope (NLST)". NASA/ADS. 264: 499–504. doi:10.1017/S1743921309993206.
  2. "India To Build World's Largest Solar Telescope". Spacedaily.com. Archived from the original on 5 September 2010. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
  3. 1 2 IANS (2 September 2010). "India to build world's largest solar telescope". Deccan Chronicle. Archived from the original on 3 September 2010. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
  4. Singh, J. Proposed National Solar Telescope Journal of Astrophysics & Astronomy, Vol. 29, No. 1 - 2, pp. 345 - 351