Swedish Solar Telescope
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The Swedish Solar Telescope (or SST) is a 1 m telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma in the Canary Islands. It is run by the Institute for Solar Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The primary element is a glass lens, making it the second largest optical refracting telescope in use in the world.
The SST is a vacuum telescope - meaning that it is evacuated internally to avoid disruption of the image from air inside. This is a particular problem with solar telescopes because of the heating from the large amounts of light collected being passed on to any air causing image degradation. As of 2005 it has produced the highest resolution images on the Sun of any telescope, using its adaptive optics system.
The SST superseded the SVST - the Swedish Vacuum Solar Telescope, which was 47.5 cm in diameter.
