Sunrise (telescope)
Sunrise is a solar telescope in the ultraviolet, that hangs from a high altitude balloon. The strong absorption of UV radiation by the Earth's atmosphere makes it challenging to carry out ground-based observations at these wavelengths. A balloon mission reaching altitudes of above 30 km benefits from a reduction of UV absorption by 99%, making engineering solutions for the telescope easier. The launch sites are either in antarctica or in the arctic region to make uninterrupted observation of the sun over several days possible. The telescope has a 1 metre primary mirror that directs the 1 kW of solar radiation to the first focal point where 99% of the radiation is reflected out of the telescope, the remaining light is transferred into several instruments.[1]
The one metre diameter primary mirror is made from a glass ceramic zerodur,[2] it is the central part of the gondola of nearly 2 tons. Solar panels of 1.5 kW out put power are used to power the onboard equipment and a hard disk array of 2 x 2.4 Terabyte is used to store the data during flight.[1][3]
Instruments
- CWS, Correlating Wavefront Sensor is a CCD camera with 1 kHz read-outs responsible generate the images necesarry for image stabilization and proper alignment.[1]
- SUFI, Sunrise Filter Imager observes the sun in five distinct wavelength, 220, 279.2, 300, 323 and 388 nm, on a 2048 x 2048 pixel CCD, through a filter wheele.[1]
- IMaX, Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment observes the Zeeman splitting of the iron line (FeI) around 525 nm. The observed field of view is 50 x 50 arcseconds.[1]
- SUPOS, Sunrise Polarimetric Spectrograph observes the Zeeman splitting of the calcium line (CaII) around 845 nm. The observation will take place in the two polarized planes and will be read out by a CCD camera.[1]
Flights
- Sunrise's first flight was launched at 8:27 June 8, 2009 from Esrange, near Kiruna, Sweden and it landed 1.45 June 14, 2009 on Somerset Island, Nunavut, northern Canada after a flight duration nearly six days.[4][5]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Barthol, P; Gandorfer, A; Solanki, S; Knolker, M; Pillet, V; Schmidt, W; Title, A (2008). "SUNRISE: High resolution UV/VIS observations of the sun from the stratosphere". Advances in Space Research 42 (1): 70–77. Bibcode 2008AdSpR..42...70T. doi:10.1016/j.asr.2007.09.024. http://www.mps.mpg.de/dokumente/publikationen/solanki/j260.pdf.
- ^ Berkefeld, T.; Schmidt, W.; Soltau, D.; Bell, A.; Doerr, H. P.; Feger, B.; Friedlein, R.; Gerber, K. et al. (2010). "The Wave-Front Correction System for the Sunrise Balloon-Borne Solar Observatory". Solar Physics 268: 103. arXiv:1009.3196. Bibcode 2011SoPh..268..103B. doi:10.1007/s11207-010-9676-3.
- ^ Schmidt, W.; Solanki, S.K.; Barthol, P.; Berkefeld, T.; Gandorfer, A.; Knölker, M.; Martínez Pillet, V.; Schüssler, M. et al. (2010). "SUNRISE - Impressions from a successful science flight". Astronomische Nachrichten 331 (6): 601. Bibcode 2010AN....331..601S. doi:10.1002/asna.201011383.
- ^ "Deutsche Forscher starten Sonnenteleskop "Sunrise"" (in german). Spiegelonline. http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/weltall/0,1518,629179,00.html. Retrieved 2009-06-08.
- ^ "sunrise science-blog". http://www.mps.mpg.de/projects/sunrise/scienceblog/.
External links
See also