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Ground based instruments

Optical

The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope is a four-meter solar telescope on the island of Maui, Hawai’i. t’s currently  the largest solar telescope in the world. 

More information on how to process and request the data is here.

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GST is the main telescope of big bear solar observatory, operated by NJIT (New Jersey Institute of Technology). It is an off-axis 1.6-m clear aperture telescope. GST routinely collects photometric, spectroscopic. and/or polarimetric data, with a high cadence.

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The Dutch Open Telescope (DOT) is an optical solar telescope located on Roque de los Muchachos ObservatoryLa Palma, with a main mirror of 45 centimeters. It can reach an 0.2 arcsec resolution for sustained periods. For further optimization of the images, the DOT uses the image despeckle mechanism. It was used to record the 2004 Venus transit. The open design was a departure from vacuum-style solar telescopes, and helped pave the way for bigger solar telescopes.

More information and how to access the data can be checked at the DOT database 

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The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope is a four-meter solar telescope on the island of Maui, Hawai’i. t’s currently  the largest solar telescope in the world. 

More information on how to process and request the data is here.

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The Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope is operated by Stockholm University (Sweden) in the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos, on the island of La Palma. The SST is a refractor telescope with a 1-m objective lens which also serves as an entrance window to the vacuum system.  It is the first solar telescope to reach a spatial resolution of 0.1 arcsec. This allowed scientists to discover new fine structures in sunspot penumbrae immediately. Since then, the SST has been at the forefront of research with advanced spectro-polarimetric instruments. Data can be accessed from here

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The Solar Magnetic Activity Research Telescope (SMART) and the Domeless Solar Telescope (DST) are the two major solar telescopes at the HIDA Observatory operated by Kyoto University, Japan. The SMART telescope provides high-resolution H-alpha images, three-dimensional Doppler velocity, and also images of three-dimensional magnetic fields. Its spectrographs can image the entire solar disk. 

Data can be accessed from  here.   

Data request & details: here. 

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Kodaikanal Solar Observatory is operated by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics. It has multiple telescopes that perform imaging and spectroscopy of the Sun in many visible wavebands. The KSO has more than 100 years of historical continuous solar observations in white light, Ca-K, and H-alpha making it the longest continuous series of solar data. 

The Data of KSO can be accessed from here. 

Microwave & Millimeter

ALMA (35 - 950 GHz)

Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array is a high sensitivity instrument capable of producing high resolution solar images (~ sub-arcsec) in the 30 - 800 GHz band. Operational since 2016, ALMA now also produces polarised maps of the Sun. It has 2 modes of observing: Interferometric mode, in which zoomed-in solar images are made; Regional mapping: either just an active region or a full solar disk.

Interferometric images:  SALSA;    Full/regional maps:  Science archive

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NoRH (17 & 34 GHz)

Nobeyama Radio Heliograph generates full disk images of the sun at 17 and 34 GHz. NoRH produced 3 and 10 min average images and movies of the same daily from 1992 - 2014. Polarimeters at Nobeyama (NoRP) also provide linear scans in 1 - 17 GHz frequencies.

Archive of images, light curves, and particular event analysis:  NoRH

Polarimetry archive: NoRP

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MRO (11.2 GHz, 37 GHz)

Metsähovi Solar Observatory in Finland  generates daily full disk images of the sun at 37 GHz. Daily images since 1978 is available. MRO also produce 11.2 GHz light curves since 2000. Daily UV light curves are also available.

Archives: Images & light curve

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Sundish (18 - 26 GHz)

INAF runs a single dish solar mapping instrument. Solar images are currently made in the 18 -26 GHz band with a view to extend in the future up to 100 GHz.

Images from 2018 to the present are available.

Data archive: Full disk images

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RATAN-600 (0.8 - 18 GHz)

1D scans of the Sun since 1999. Data is collected daily at 112 frequency channels within 0.8 - 18 GHz in R and L circular polarisations.

Archive:  Light curves

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EOVSA (1 - 18 GHz)

Expanded Owens Valley Solar Array operates in the 1 - 18 GHz band, producing daily solar dynamic spectra. They have also started generating images.

Archive of images, dynamic spectra:  EOVSA daily data and events

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SSRT (3- 6 GHz, 2 - 24 GHz)

Siberian Solar Radio Observatory produces images at 3 - 6 GHz range and performs spectro-polarimetry in 2 - 24 GHz. Daily images and dynamic spectra can be downloaded from their website.

Data archive: Images & DS

Radio

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GRH

The Gauribidanur RadioheliograPH (GRAPH) is located 100 km north of Bangalore. It has 384 antennas operated as an interferometric array producing transit images of the Sun every day at two frequencies between 30 - 110 MHz.

The website has processed images. Data will be available on request from the Group in FITS format for processing using AIPS/CASA. 

Daily Images

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LOFAR

LOFAR is a SKA precursor with stations in the Netherlands and all over Europe. Solar Observations are usually done by forming multiple beams on the Sun, but interferometric images are available during Solar transit every day using the NL stations. It also has a special program, LOFAR4SW, aiming to exploit LOFAR for producing space weather products.

Daily Spectra

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MWA (80 - 240 MHz)

Murchison Widefield Array in Australia is a precursor to the SKA. It offers a time resolution of 0.25s and 10kHz spectral resolution. It observes the sun for ~ 200h every year, and raw data since 2013 is available.

Archive:  Raw Measurement set

Imaging pipeline: P-AIRCARS

The data table till 2017 with daily event reports is here.

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Culgoora & Learmonth
(18 - 1800 MHz)

Long standing meterwvae spectrographs in operated by  CSIRO in Australia. Culgoora was operational from 1992 - 2019 and Learmonth is operational since 2000 producing daily spectrographs.  

Archive:  Daily dynamic spectra

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NRH

Nancay Radio Heliograph generates images daily from 1992 - 2014.

Archive of images, light curves, and particular event analysis:  NoRH daily data and events

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eCALLISTO

eCALLISTO is a network of radio antennas all over the world operating from decametric to cm wavelengths. It provides continuous monitoring of Solar Dynamic Spectra throughout the whole day. Archival data is available as FITS files from 1978.

Archive of dynamic spectra:  E-callisto

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Copyright: All images are copyright of their respective owners.

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